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Fricasseed Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in a butter and flour sauce, finished with egg and cream, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters as dry as possible.

Cook and serve

  1. In a skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter until browned.

  2. Add the oysters and cook until they start to cook through.

  3. Mix 2 tablespoons of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour and add to the skillet.

  4. Cook for a moment, then add 1 beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of cream.

  5. Cook briefly and pour the mixture over toasted bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Form the main body of the dish and supply their own briny, savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and nutty, browned flavour to the skillet and the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Egg
Sets with gentle heat to thicken and enrich the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a softer, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Cook briefly after adding the egg mixture. Egg proteins set and can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the sauce should be cooked only briefly and kept gentle, just long enough to thicken smoothly.

“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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