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Curried Oysters

Oysters served in a curry sauce made with oyster liquor, enriched with egg yolks and cream, with boiled rice as a border.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Curried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters.

  2. Drain the oysters, reserving the liquor.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Prepare the curry sauce using the reserved oyster liquor.

  2. Mix the egg yolks into the curry sauce.

  3. Mix the cream into the curry sauce.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Boil the rice in some of the scalded oyster liquor until cooked.

  2. Serve the curried oysters in the center of a plate.

  3. Serve the rice as a border around the plate.

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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Oyster + ricetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the curry sauce and give it a rich, smooth body as they set gently with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the curry sauce and mellowing its heat.
Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender texture at the centre of the dish.
Rice
Serves as a starchy base that absorbs the flavorful oyster liquor and frames the plate.

The step that matters

Mix the egg yolks into the curry sauce. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it gets too hot or the yolks are added too fast. Adding them gradually and keeping the heat gentle keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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