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Oyster Sauce

A sauce made from oysters, milk or cream, butter, flour, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Stew the oysters in their own liquor for 5 minutes, then add the milk.

  2. When it boils, strain the liquor and return it to the saucepan.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken with the flour mixed with cold water, stirring well.

  2. Add the butter and cayenne pepper (if desired), and boil for 1 minute.

  3. Squeeze in the lemon juice, mix well, and pour out.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds creaminess and softens the sauce's flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening with the flour mixture. Mixing the flour with cold water first lets it disperse without lumps. Stir it in well while the liquid is hot, because the starch only thickens the sauce fully once it has heated and swelled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, milk, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, milk, pepper, nutmeg. 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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