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Curry of Oysters

A buttery oyster curry thickened with flour, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curry of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the curry powder.

  2. Add enough water to prevent burning.

Cook the oysters

  1. Simmer the oysters in just enough water to cover them for three minutes, then drain.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the broth with the flour and salt to taste, then stir this into the curry.

  2. Add the oysters, simmer for a moment, and serve with boiled rice.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  4. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + ricetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (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
Provide the main protein and briny flavour that the curry sauce carries.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly body sauce as it heats.
Curry powder
Blooms in the hot butter to release aroma and give the sauce its spiced flavour.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's fat-soluble flavour compounds and adds richness.

The step that matters

Thicken the broth with the flour. Flour must be whisked into the liquid so it hydrates evenly; if it is dropped in dry or left unstirred it forms lumps and the sauce turns pasty instead of smooth.

“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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