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Oyster Stew

A creamy stew of oysters simmered in milk, butter, and optional flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the oyster juice.

  3. Strain the oyster juice.

Finish the stew

  1. Add the oysters to the strained juice.

  2. Cook until the edges curl.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the butter and hot milk.

  5. If desired, cook the flour with the butter before adding it to the mixture.

  6. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Main ingredient; their edges curl and firm as proteins set with gentle heat.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and adds body and mild sweetness to the stew.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavour.
Flour
Optional thickener; cooked with butter, its starch swells in the hot liquid to add body.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters only until the edges curl. Oyster proteins tighten and toughen with prolonged heat, so overcooking makes them rubbery and shrinks them. Stop as soon as the edges curl.

“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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