Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Oyster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Boil the oysters in their own juice for one minute, stirring steadily.
Drain the oysters and return the liquid to the heat.
Add the milk to the liquid.
In a bowl, mix the butter and flour to a smooth paste.
Stir the paste into the hot liquid until it thickens.
Chop the oysters small and add them to the sauce.
Season with salt and pepper.
Remove from heat.
Serve
Serve with poultry and boiled fish.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 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
- Oysters
- Provide the main savoury flavour and texture, with pieces chopped into the sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it a creamy body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavour, and helps the flour blend smoothly.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
The step that matters
Stir the paste into the hot liquid until it thickens. Flour thickens only when heated in liquid. Stirring the butter-flour paste in steadily keeps it from clumping into lumps, giving a smooth sauce.
“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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