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Oyster Balls

Oyster Balls are fried balls made with oysters, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, parsley, nutmeg, salt, cayenne, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the fine bread crumbs, melted butter, nutmeg, salt, egg yolks, chopped parsley, and cayenne.

  2. Add the chopped oysters and enough oyster liquor to form a mixture that can be shaped into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the balls in bread crumbs, then dip in egg, and roll in crumbs again.

  2. Fry the balls in hot cottolene until golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fine bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the ball and give it a crisp, golden coating.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the crumbs brown.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help the coating set and brown.
Oysters
Provide the main flavor and moisture in the centre of each ball.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and seafood flavor so the mixture holds its shape.

The step that matters

Forming the balls. The mixture must be moist enough to hold its shape but not so wet that it falls apart. Too much liquor makes the balls loose and they may break in the hot fat, while too little leaves them dry and crumbly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, nutmeg, egg, oyster):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, nutmeg, egg, oyster. 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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