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Oyster Plant

A stew of salsify roots simmered in liquid and finished with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the roots and place them in cold water immediately to prevent blackening.

  2. Cut the roots into 1‑inch pieces and place them in a saucepan with hot water to cover.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew until tender, then drain the water.

  2. Add enough soup, stock, or milk to cover the salsify and stew for 10 minutes after it begins to boil.

  3. Add a large lump of butter cut into bits and rolled in flour, then serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salsify
Is the main vegetable, becoming tender and mild when stewed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stew a smooth, silky body.
Flour
Coats the butter so it thickens the liquid as it melts into the stew.
Soup, stock, or milk
Forms the cooking liquid that gives the stew its savoury flavour and body.

The step that matters

Add the butter and flour rolled in flour. Butter and flour added at the end thicken the liquid when it melts and stirs in. If the butter is added in one large lump without being worked in, the sauce may be uneven and greasy rather than smooth.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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