Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Oysteks

A stew of oysters and clams simmered in water, milk or cream, butter, pepper, salt, and rolled crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Oysteks

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the oysters and place them in a kettle with boiling water.

  2. Add the clams and their liquor; bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in milk (or cream), butter, pepper, and salt, along with the rolled crackers.

  4. Boil for only 2-3 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + clamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main body of the stew and supply the briny, savoury flavour.
Clams
Add extra brininess and flavour through their liquor, which goes into the pot.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the broth slightly as they soften and absorb liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the sea flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded, silky mouthfeel in the broth.

The step that matters

Boil for only 2-3 minutes. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overcooked, becoming rubbery and dry. A brief simmer after adding them keeps them tender and plump, and boiling milk or cream too hard can cause it to curdle or separate.

“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.

More stewed oysters recipes

with Celery 6on Toast 3 See all 229 →

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes