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Fried Chicken with Oysters

Fried chicken served with a gravy made from oysters and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and oyster work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 972 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Fried Chicken with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Open the chicken down the back and clean it well.

  2. Pound all the bones flat, then wash and dry the chicken with a clean towel.

  3. Season the chicken with pepper and salt.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the chicken slowly in sweet lard until tender and golden brown on both sides.

  2. Keep the chicken warm on a dish.

  3. Pour off the lard from the pan, leaving any brown particles.

  4. Add ½ pint of hot water and enough flour to make the gravy the right consistency.

  5. Remove the oysters from their liquor and add them to the pan with the gravy.

  6. Simmer the oysters until their gills begin to shrivel, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Pour the oysters and gravy over the chicken 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. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

  5. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender chicken
Provides the main meat, which cooks through and browns in the lard.
Sweet lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the chicken its golden, crisp browning.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a gravy.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the gravy and cook briefly until their edges firm and curl.

The step that matters

Simmer the oysters until their gills begin to shrivel. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked, so they should be heated only until their edges firm and curl, while stirring keeps them cooking evenly in the gravy.

“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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