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Oyster Patties

A savory oyster patty made with oysters, milk, cream, flour, butter, spices, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Patties

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the oysters with their liquor in a pan until hot.

  2. In another pan, heat the milk and cream until boiling.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour and butter mixture until smooth.

  4. Add the salt, cayenne pepper, hot oysters, and rolled cracker crumbs.

  5. Cook until the sauce reaches the consistency of ordinary cream sauce.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 flavor and tender bite of the filling.
Milk and cream
Form the liquid base that becomes the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor into the sauce.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and butter. Adding the flour and butter mixture gradually while stirring keeps lumps from forming. Flour thickens as its starch swells in hot liquid, so smooth, steady stirring gives an even sauce.

“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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