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Oysters in Butter

Oysters coated in a nutmeg and mace batter are fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oysters in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk, nutmeg, beaten mace, flour, and coarse sea salt to create a batter.

  2. If desired, add finely chopped parsley to the batter before dipping the oysters.

Fry the oysters

  1. Dip the oysters into the batter, ensuring they are well coated.

  2. Heat hogs lard in a pan over medium heat.

  3. Fry the oysters in the hot lard until they are a nice light brown.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the batter and helps it cling to the oysters while frying.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it coats the oysters and crisps as it fries.
Oysters
Main ingredient, cooked in the batter until the coating browns.

The step that matters

Frying the oysters in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. If it is too hot, the coating browns before the oysters are cooked through. Medium heat and a light brown colour give a balance of crisp coating and gentle cooking.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, nutmeg, mace, flour, oyster):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, nutmeg, mace, flour, oyster. 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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