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Oyster Fricassee

A creamy oyster dish with milk, flour, butter, cayenne pepper, egg yolks, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Bring the oysters to a boil in their own liquor, then drain them.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the boiling milk and flour to thicken.

  2. Add the oysters, oyster liquor, butter, and cayenne pepper to the milk mixture.

  3. Let the mixture come to a boil, then remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and chopped parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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 flavour and texture of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, coating sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently heated, adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated, so if the mixture is too hot when they are added, they can scramble and become grainy. Removing the pan from heat before adding them lets them thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, milk, flour, butter, pepper, egg. 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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