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Oyster Stew

A creamy oyster stew made with fresh oysters, oyster liquor, milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the oysters and reserve the liquor.

Make the stew

  1. Heat the oyster liquor and water in a pot until boiling.

  2. Add the milk, salt, and pepper to the boiling mixture.

  3. Boil for five minutes.

  4. Stir in the butter until melted.

Serve

  1. Serve with oyster crackers or strips of toast.

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

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and the tender, briny bites of the stew.
Oyster liquor
Adds concentrated sea flavor as the base of the broth.
Milk
Gives the stew its creamy body and mild, rounded sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil the milk gently. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pot and boil over when heated hard. Keep the stew at a steady boil and stir it so the milk-based liquid heats 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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