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Oyster Stew

A stew of oysters simmered in scalded milk with celery, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Rinse the oysters in cold water and remove any bits of shell.

  2. Reserve the oyster liquor.

  3. Bring the oyster liquor to a boil.

  4. Strain the boiled oyster liquor through cheesecloth.

Make the milk base

  1. Scald the milk with the celery.

  2. Remove the celery from the milk.

  3. Add the oyster liquor to the milk.

Cook and serve

  1. In an omelet pan, cook the oysters until plump and their gills are curled.

  2. Use a skimmer to transfer the oysters to a hot soup tureen.

  3. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the oysters.

  4. Strain the milk mixture over the oysters.

  5. 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Oyster + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,131 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main ingredient; cooking them until plump and gills curl gives the stew its flavor and texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the stew and carries the oyster flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Celery
Infuses the scalded milk with a subtle, aromatic vegetal flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until plump and gills curl. Oysters overcook quickly; heating them just until the edges curl keeps them tender and juicy, while overcooking makes them rubbery and shrunken.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, milk, pepper. 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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