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Oyster Pancakes

A batter of oysters, milk, flour, eggs, and optional baking powder and butter cooked on a griddle into pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Oyster Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the oysters and combine with milk and cream to make 1 pint.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder (if using).

  3. Stir in the milk mixture and beaten eggs until smooth.

  4. Fold in the chopped oysters.

  5. If the batter is too thick, add more milk.

  6. For richer pancakes, mix in melted butter before cooking.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and pour batter to form pancakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve with toasted crackers.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Flour and butter 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
Provide the main savoury flavour and tender bits throughout the pancake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pancakes as they cook.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the pancakes hold together.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the pancakes and gives a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Adjusting batter thickness before cooking. Batter that is too thick cooks up dense and may not spread or set evenly on the griddle. Thinning with milk gives a pourable batter that cooks through evenly.

“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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