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Creamed Oysters

A sauce of cream, butter, spices, and oysters, finished with egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine cream, butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Thicken the mixture with cornstarch.

Add the oysters and serve

  1. Add oysters and their juice.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg just before serving.

  3. Serve with sandwiches.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the rich base of the sauce and gives it a smooth, velvety body.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the sauce and gives it a mellow flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream mixture as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Oysters
Provide the main flavor and texture, with their juice adding briny depth to the sauce.
Egg
Enriches and further thickens the sauce when stirred in near the end.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg just before serving. Egg proteins set and can curdle if the sauce is too hot or boils after it is added. Stirring it in off the heat near the end 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.

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