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Creamed Oysters

Oysters cooked and served in a cream sauce thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,886 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream sauce

  1. Bring the cream to a boil.

  2. Mix the cornstarch with a little milk and stir it into the boiling cream.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the oysters

  1. Boil the oysters in their own liquor and skim carefully.

  2. Drain the liquor and add the oysters to the cream.

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. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Main ingredient, cooked gently in the cream so they stay tender and flavour the sauce.
Cream
Provides the fat and richness that make up the body of the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as its starch swells and sets when heated in liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling cream. Cornstarch thickens only when it is fully dispersed and heated. Adding it to hot cream without mixing it well first can cause lumps, and it must be cooked 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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