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Fried Oysters

Fried oysters are oysters coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in lard and butter, served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters in a colander.

  2. Dip each oyster into the beaten egg.

  3. Coat the oysters with softened bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the oysters in a mixture of lard and butter until brown.

  2. Season with salt and pepper before turning them over.

  3. Place pieces of butter on a platter, then transfer the fried oysters onto the platter and top with more butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Oysters
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender interior inside a crisp coating.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the oysters so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating while adding a rich flavour.
Butter
Adds flavour and helps the coating brown, with milk solids giving a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Fry until brown without overcooking. The oysters cook quickly in hot fat. Frying at a steady heat browns the crumb coating before the oyster inside overcooks and turns rubbery.

“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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