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Stewed Oysters

Stewed oysters simmered in a butter, flour, and cream sauce seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Strain the oyster liquor and bring it to a boil for a few minutes.

  2. Skim the surface well.

Finish the stew

  1. Mix the flour and butter with the cream, then add to the boiling liquor.

  2. Season with black pepper, red pepper, and salt if needed.

  3. Add the oysters and boil for 10 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 body and briny flavor of the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky moisture that softens the liquor's sharpness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the stew body.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor, and helps the flour thicken smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters and boiling for 10 minutes. Oysters are delicate proteins. Prolonged vigorous boiling toughens them and makes them shrink and curl, so they should be added last and cooked only until their edges curl.

“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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