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Fricasseed Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in butter, flour, egg, and cream, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters as dry as possible.

  2. In a skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter until browned.

  3. Add the oysters and cook until they start to cook.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix 1 teaspoon of flour with more butter.

  2. Add the mixture to the oysters. Cook for a moment.

  3. Add 1 beaten egg mixed with 1 teaspoon of cream. Cook briefly.

Serve

  1. Pour over toasted bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Oysters
Provide the main body and briny flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns to give a nutty aroma.
Flour
Thickens the butter and juices into a light, cohesive sauce.
Egg
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it gently sets with the heat.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, smoothing the egg into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream. Egg proteins set with heat, so once the egg mixture goes in, cook only briefly over gentle heat. Overcooking can curdle the egg and make the sauce grainy instead of 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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