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Deviled Oysters

A savory oyster dish with a buttery, spiced sauce served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Deviled Oysters

Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Deviled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Stir in the flour until blended.

  3. Add the oyster liquor and all seasonings except the lemon juice.

Cook and serve

  1. Once the sauce is boiling hot, drop in the oysters.

  2. Cook for 3 minutes or until the oysters plump.

  3. Add the lemon juice and serve immediately on Graham toast.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 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 + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 ingredient, which firms and plumps briefly when dropped into hot sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and oyster liquor into a smooth sauce.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the liquid base and briny oyster flavour of the sauce.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma that flavours the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Drop in the oysters once the sauce is boiling hot, then cook only until they plump. Oysters are delicate protein and turn rubbery and shrink when overcooked. Cooking briefly in hot sauce just until the edges plump keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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