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Stewed Oysters

A dish of oysters simmered in milk and butter sauce, seasoned with salt and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters, saving the liquor, and wash them thoroughly.

  2. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  3. Rub together the butter and flour, then add to the scalded milk and stir until thickened.

  4. Heat the oyster liquor until boiling, skimming off any scum.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the oysters to the boiling liquor and cook until the edges curl.

  2. Immediately transfer the oysters to the cream sauce, add salt and cayenne, and serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Are the main ingredient, cooked briefly so the edges curl and the flesh stays tender.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the sauce that the oysters are served in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form a roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until the edges curl, then transfer them promptly. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overheated, so they should be cooked only until the edges curl and moved right away to the cream sauce to stop further cooking.

“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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