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Oyster Fricassee

A creamy oyster sauce made with butter, flour, oyster liquor, eggs, oil, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour until a smooth paste forms.

  2. Add the strained oyster liquor and a little water if necessary.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg; bring to a boil.

Cook the oysters

  1. Add the oysters and cook until the edges curl.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks, salad oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquor into a smooth, cohesive sauce when cooked with the butter.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set gently off the heat.
Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture; cooking only until the edges curl keeps them plump.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the egg yolks.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks off the heat. If the sauce is too hot when the yolks go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Removing the pan from the heat first lets the yolks thicken the sauce gently and smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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