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Fricasseed Oysters

A creamy oyster fricassee served on toast or in paper cases.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Cook the oysters in 1 tablespoon of butter until plump.

  2. Season the oysters with ¼ teaspoon white pepper, ½ teaspoon salt, and a few grains of red pepper.

  3. Drain the oysters and keep them hot.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine enough cream with the oyster liquor to make 1 cup.

  2. In a pan, cook 1 tablespoon of flour in 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Slowly add the cream and oyster liquor, and lemon juice if desired.

  4. Pour the sauce onto 1 beaten egg, then add the hot oysters and heat for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast for breakfast or in paper cases for dinner or luncheon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 briefly so they stay plump and tender in the sauce.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and adds richness and a smooth texture.
Flour
Cooked in butter to form a roux that thickens the cream and oyster liquor.
Egg
Beaten into the sauce to enrich it and help it set slightly when heated.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to cook the oysters and to make the roux.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce onto the beaten egg. Adding hot sauce to the egg slowly, while stirring, warms the egg gradually so it thickens smoothly instead of scrambling into curds.

“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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