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Oyster Sausages

A fried sausage made from oysters, veal, suet, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Oyster and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop together the oysters, veal, suet, and bread crumbs.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Form small cakes and roll them in flour mixed with the egg.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot lard until they are dry.

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

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 flavor and moisture of the sausage mixture.
Veal
Adds body and a meaty texture to the mixture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and rich as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the chopped mixture together.
Egg
Helps the flour coating adhere and form a crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the flour coating quickly; if it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy before the coating sets.

“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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