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Veal Steak, with Oyster Sauce

A veal steak topped with a sauce made from oyster liquor, butter, flour, and canned oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Steak, with Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

  1. Broil the veal steak until cooked to your liking.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the oyster liquor, butter, and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture and bring it to a boil.

  3. Add the oysters and let it boil again.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the steak and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together988 recipes

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

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, 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

Veal steak
Forms the main body of the dish and is the protein the sauce is served over.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the briny, savory liquid base that gives the sauce its oyster flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquor mixture as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Canned oysters
Add the main oyster flavor and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil after adding flour. Flour only thickens fully once the starch in it has been heated to boiling in the liquid. Stirring while it heats keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and a thin or pasty texture.

“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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