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Oysters Fricasseed

A creamy oyster stew with ham, onions, and herbs, finished with egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oysters Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped ham, onion, parsley, lemon rind, and nutmeg; cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the flour, then add the water and meat extract; bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the egg yolks with the cream, then add to the mixture along with the oysters.

  2. Stir gently for a few minutes and serve immediately.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender seafood texture of the fricassee.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when stirred in without boiling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the aromatics and adds rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the mixture is too hot or boiling. Stirring gently over low heat keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, parsley, onion, meat, flour, oyster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, parsley, onion, meat, flour, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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