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Oysters, Curried

A curry sauce served with oysters and boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Oysters, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters without losing their liquor.

  2. Place the oysters in a saucepan over heat for 1 minute to firm up, then remove the gills and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter, then mix in the curry powder and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the minced onion and stir gently until tender.

  3. Pour in the oyster liquor and lemon juice, then bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Add the oysters and simmer for 30 seconds, stirring gently.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with boiled rice around it.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Butter + flourtop 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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Oysters
Provide the main protein and briny flavour that the sauce carries.
Fresh butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and colour that define the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and curry mixture into a smooth base for the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury body as it softens in the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they need only a brief 30 seconds in the hot sauce. Longer heat makes them rubbery and dries out their delicate flavour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, onion, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, onion, rice. 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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