Skip to main content
Main

Fried Oysters

Fried oysters are oysters coated in egg and cracker crumbs, then fried in lard and served hot with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all bits of shell and straw from the oysters and drain them on a coarse towel.

Coat

  1. Dip each oyster in a well-beaten egg.

  2. Coat each oyster with seasoned cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot lard until evenly browned.

  2. Place on a napkin over a hot dish to drain excess fat.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Large oysters
Main ingredient; they are the item being fried and served hot.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the oyster so the coating adheres during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried in hot fat.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the coating evenly.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until evenly browned. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs more fat and turns greasy instead of crisp. Frying at a steady high heat sets the crumb coating quickly and keeps the oyster inside tender.

“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.

More fried oysters recipes

Mock 7Breaded 4Philadelphia 3 See all 440 →

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes