Skip to main content
Main

Oysters a LA Poulette

A dish of oysters cooked with sherry or white wine, egg yolks, and rich cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oysters a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Prepare the oysters as directed for Curried Oysters, omitting the curry powder.

  2. Add ½ cup of sherry or white wine.

  3. Cook the oysters, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in 2 beaten egg yolks mixed with 2 tablespoons of rich cream.

  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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Oyster + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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, cooked gently so they stay tender and plump.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating as they gently set with heat.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce and keeping the yolks silky.
Sherry or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lightly flavouring the oysters and their cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and can scramble if too hot. Removing the pan from heat before stirring in the yolks and cream keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

“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.

You might also like

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