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Oyster Plant

A dish of boiled or fried oyster plant served with white sauce or salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the outer peel of the oyster plant and soak in cold water with a little vinegar.

Boil

  1. Boil the oyster plant in plenty of water with salt, lemon juice, and butter until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve with white sauce, adding the oyster plant 5-6 minutes before the sauce is done.

  2. For frying, coat the oyster plant in a thin batter and serve with fried parsley on top, sprinkling with salt before serving.

  3. For a salad, mix boiled oyster plant with oil, vinegar, mustard, cream, parsley, anchovy, and capers.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster plant
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, rounded mouthfeel to the boiled root.
Egg
Thickens the white sauce, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness to the salad dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cream and oil.

The step that matters

Boiling until tender. Oyster plant must be cooked until fully tender, since undercooked roots stay fibrous and firm. Adding it to white sauce only 5-6 minutes before the sauce is done lets it heat through without overcooking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, vinegar, butter, sauce, egg, mustard, cream):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, vinegar, butter, sauce, egg, mustard, cream. 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.

More oyster plant recipes

Scalloped 8Fried 6Stew 4Creamed 3Stewed 3 See all 7 →

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