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Oyster and Shrimp Sauce

A sauce made with brown sauce, oyster liquor, oysters, shrimp, anchovy essence, lemon, spices, and fish stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oyster and Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine brown sauce, strained oyster liquor, and pounded oysters with lemon rind in a pan.

  2. Add anchovy essence, lemon juice, salt, cayenne, parsley, and mace.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes, then strain.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the pan, add fish stock and shrimp, cover, and cook for a few minutes.

  2. Add the diced oysters, cover again, and heat through without boiling.

  3. Serve hot with fish or beef steaks.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, giving body and a savoury, thickened texture.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour; the pounded oysters flavour the sauce while the diced oysters stay tender.
Oyster liquor
Adds concentrated oyster flavour and extra moisture to the sauce.
Shrimp
Contribute sweet, delicate seafood flavour and a tender bite.
Anchovy essence
Adds a salty, umami depth that rounds out the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Heat the diced oysters without boiling. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked. Adding them last and heating gently just until warm keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, oyster, lemon, anchovy, parsley, fish, shrimp):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, oyster, lemon, anchovy, parsley, fish, shrimp. 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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