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Stewed Oysters and Clams

A creamy stew of oysters or clams simmered in milk and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Stewed Oysters and Clams

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Put the liquor from the oysters or clams in a pot and bring it to a boil.

  2. Drop in the oysters or clams.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the milk with the wheat flour until smooth.

  4. Add the milk mixture to the pot while stirring continuously.

  5. Cook until the broth thickens and becomes creamy.

Serve

  1. Remove from heat and serve hot.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 or clams
Provide the main protein and briny flavour of the stew.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that becomes the stew's broth.
Wheat flour
Thickens the milk broth as it heats, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, smooth flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and flour mixture. Flour lumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed, so it must be fully smooth first and stirred in continuously. Stirring keeps starch dispersed so the broth thickens evenly as it heats.

“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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