Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Oyster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Boil the oyster juice in a saucepan.
In a small bowl, mix the flour with enough water to make a smooth paste.
Add the flour mixture to the boiling oyster juice and stir to thicken.
Boil for 2 minutes.
Finish and serve
Add the oysters and butter.
Bring to a boil once more before serving.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,582 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, 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
- Oyster juice
- Provides the main briny, savoury flavour of the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated in the boiling juice.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour paste into the boiling juice. Flour must be fully smooth before it goes in, and the liquid must be stirred as it is added. Lumps form if flour clumps, and the starch only thickens evenly when it is dispersed and heated, so the sauce stays smooth.
“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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