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Oyster Cakes

A savory cake made with veal, suet, oysters, cracker crumbs, egg, and fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Oyster Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the veal, suet, and oysters very fine.

Form the cakes

  1. Mix the chopped ingredients with pepper, salt, and enough cracker crumbs to form small cakes.

  2. Dip each cake into the beaten egg.

Fry

  1. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together988 recipes

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

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 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

Veal
Adds savory meaty body and a firm, tender texture to the cakes.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and helps them brown when fried.
Oysters
Provide the main briny, savory flavor of the cakes.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the chopped mixture so it holds its cake shape.
Egg
Coats the cakes so they set and form a cohesive crust in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in butter. Cakes that are fried over heat that is too high can brown on the outside while staying raw inside, and loose cakes may break apart. Moderate heat lets the interior cook through as the egg coating sets and the surface turns golden.

“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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