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Oyster Salad

A chilled salad of oysters, celery, cabbage, and mayonnaise, seasoned with vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Oyster Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the celery and cabbage.

  2. Boil them in salted water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain and chop finely.

Poach the oysters

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters and boil it.

  2. Skim the liquid.

  3. Add an equal amount of vinegar, broken peppercorns, pepper sauce, and salt.

  4. Add the oysters to the boiling mixture. Shake the pan gently to keep them plump. Do not let them boil.

  5. Drain and set aside to cool completely.

Assemble the salad

  1. Season the chopped celery and cabbage with oil and vinegar.

  2. Spread some in a dish or individual servings.

  3. Place the oysters side by side on top of the celery mixture.

  4. Add the remaining celery on top.

  5. Smooth the surface.

  6. Pour mayonnaise over it until it runs slightly.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and tender texture when gently poached and kept plump.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mildly savoury flavour to the salad base.
Mayonnaise salad dressing
Adds richness and moisture, coating the salad and softening its sharp notes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the oyster liquor and seasons the chopped vegetables.

The step that matters

Poach the oysters without boiling. Boiling toughens oyster flesh and makes it shrink and dry, so the oysters should be heated just until their edges curl and then cooled in the liquid.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, celery, vinegar, pepper, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, celery, vinegar, pepper, 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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