Skip to main content
Main

Fricasseed Oysters

A savory oyster dish simmered with ham, broth, onions, and herbs, thickened with corn starch and finished with eggs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fricasseed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham and broth

  1. Soak the slice of ham in boiling water for 30 minutes.

  2. Cut the ham into small pieces and place in a saucepan with the broth, oyster liquor, minced onion, parsley, marjoram, and pepper.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Boil rapidly for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Skim the mixture.

Thicken and add oysters

  1. Add the corn-starch mixed with milk.

  2. Stir constantly until it boils.

  3. Add the oysters and butter, letting it come to a boil.

  4. Remove the oysters to a deep dish.

  5. Beat the egg and gradually mix in some hot broth. Stir it into the pan.

  6. Season with salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the oysters.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice over the dish before serving.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Marjoram + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled raw ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the broth.
Oysters
Main seafood ingredient, providing the dish's characteristic briny flavor.
Corn-starch
Thickens the broth into a smooth, velvety sauce when it boils.
Egg
Enriches and further thickens the sauce when stirred in off the heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Veal or chicken broth
Forms the savory liquid base that the sauce is built on.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the sauce. If the hot broth is added too quickly or the mixture boils after the egg goes in, the egg can scramble and turn grainy. Tempering it with hot broth first and stirring gently keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, oyster, parsley, marjoram, pepper, corn):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, oyster, parsley, marjoram, pepper, corn. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipes