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Mock Oyster

A vegetarian dish resembling oysters, made from stewed tomatoes, milk, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mock Oyster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a pot, combine the stewed tomatoes and baking soda until it stops foaming.

Thicken the milk

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the boiling milk with cornstarch until thickened.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the thickened milk to the tomato mixture along with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix well, let it boil, and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Provide the acidic, tomato-based body that gives the dish its flavor base.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, reducing sourness and the foaming reaction when they are combined.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the dish its rich, smooth body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy texture when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the thickened milk to the tomato mixture. Baking soda has neutralized the tomato acidity, and mixing hot milk with acidic liquid can curdle it. Adding the milk gradually and keeping the mixture below a hard boil helps it stay smooth.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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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