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Oysters a LA Newburg

A creamy oyster dish with butter, corn starch, cream, egg yolks, and optional sherry, garnished with oyster crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oysters a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Put the oysters in a pan with their liquor and heat until boiling, then drain and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish, add the corn starch, and stir until smooth.

  2. Add the cream and bring to a boil, then stir in the egg yolks and oysters.

  3. Bring to a boil again, season with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce, then transfer to a serving dish.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, sprinkle with sherry and garnish with tiny oyster 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + eggtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,093 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,175 recipes

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

  4. Corn + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, cooked briefly so they stay tender in the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries the starch so it blends smoothly.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Cream
Gives the sauce its body, richness and mild sweetness.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it a silky texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot when they are added. Keeping the sauce at a gentle heat while stirring lets the yolks thicken it smoothly.

“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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