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Fried Oysters

Fried oysters are oysters coated in egg, milk, and grated stale bread, then fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and wipe them dry with a cloth.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and milk together.

  3. Place the grated bread in a large flat dish.

Fry and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until boiling hot.

  2. Dip each oyster in the egg and milk mixture, then roll in the grated bread to coat.

  3. Fry the oysters in the hot butter, turning them until browned on both sides.

  4. Serve the fried oysters dry on a hot dish without the leftover butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient, which cooks quickly and turns tender inside a crisp coating.
Egg yolks
Bind the milk to the bread crumbs so the coating adheres to each oyster.
Stale bread
Forms a crisp, golden crumb coating that protects the oysters while they fry.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the oysters in hot butter. Butter must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly; if it is too cool, the oysters soak up fat and turn greasy, and if too hot the butter can burn before the coating sets.

“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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