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Oyster Stew

A creamy stew made with oysters, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the flour and cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly to avoid coloring.

  3. Slowly add the milk and stir until it begins to thicken.

Add the oysters

  1. Add the oyster liquor and then the oysters.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and celery salt if desired.

  3. Cook until the edges of the oysters curl, indicating they are done.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base and helps the flour cook smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a light, creamy base as it cooks with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the stew, thickened by the flour into a creamy body.
Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture, cooked briefly until their edges curl.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters only until their edges curl. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be heated just until the edges curl and they are done.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, oyster, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, oyster, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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