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Oyster Fricassee

A creamy oyster sauce made with butter, flour, oyster liquor, egg yolks, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Mix in the flour until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Add the strained oyster liquor and a little water if necessary.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Bring to a boil.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the oysters and cook until the edges curl.

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks, salad oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the roux base and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth paste and gives the sauce body.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the briny, savoury oyster flavour that forms the base of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture when stirred in off heat.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the oyster flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and scramble if too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before adding them lets the sauce thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, oyster, pepper, egg, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, oyster, pepper, egg, vinegar, parsley. 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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