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Stewed Oysters

A savory oyster stew thickened with butter, flour, and oyster liquor, finished with milk, catsup, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Stew the oysters in their own liquor until boiling.

  2. Skim the liquid and remove the oysters.

  3. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  4. Strain the liquor through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add enough flour to thicken.

  3. Stir in the oyster liquor, milk or cream, white pepper, salt, catsup, parsley, lemon peel, and lemon juice.

  4. Boil for a couple of minutes until smooth.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Add the oysters to warm them.

Serve

  1. Line a hash dish with bread sippets.

  2. Pour the oysters and sauce into the dish.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, cooked gently so they stay tender and plump in the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor while it cooks with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the briny, savory base of the sauce and moisture for the thickened liquid.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the sauce, giving it a mellower, creamier texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, briny sauce and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce only until smooth, then remove from heat before adding the oysters. Flour thickens properly only when it is cooked through in hot liquid, so the sauce must come to a boil and stay smooth. Oysters overcook quickly and turn tough and rubbery, so they should only be warmed in the sauce off the heat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, milk, parsley, lemon, bread):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, milk, parsley, lemon, bread. 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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