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Oysters, Fried

Oysters coated in a batter of flour, egg yolk, clarified butter, water, and egg whites, then fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Oysters, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters and simmer them for 2 minutes in their own liquor.

  2. Dry the oysters with a cloth and remove the gills.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, egg yolk, clarified butter, and lukewarm water until smooth.

  2. Add a pinch of salt and let the batter stand in a cool place for 2 hours.

  3. Stir in the well-whisked egg whites.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each oyster in the batter and drop them into boiling fat.

  2. Fry until crisp and brown, about 7 to 8 minutes.

  3. Drain on a cloth and serve very 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. Flour + buttertop 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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure, which clings to the oysters and fries up crisp.
Egg whites
Whisked egg whites add air that keeps the fried batter light and puffed.
Egg yolk
Enriches the batter and helps it bind smoothly for an even coating.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor in the crust.
Oysters
The main ingredient, whose delicate flesh is cooked gently inside the crisp coating.

The step that matters

Drop the oysters into boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil, turns greasy, and the oysters overcook before the coating browns.

“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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