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Fricasseed Oysters with Mushrooms

Creamy oysters cooked with mushrooms in a butter, flour, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove gills from oysters and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, melt butter and whisk in flour.

  2. Add salt, pepper, celery salt, cream, and mushroom liquor to the mixture.

  3. Slowly stir in egg yolks to avoid curdling.

Cook and serve

  1. Add oysters and mushrooms, cooking until oysters are plump and edges are curled.

  2. 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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mushroom + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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, whose texture firms and curls as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a silky body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, setting it gently when heated.
Mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and texture to the fricassee.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle when they meet hot liquid and heat too quickly. Adding them slowly while stirring tempers them, so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, mushroom, butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper. 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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