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Oyster Stew

A stew of oysters simmered in sherry, milk, and egg yolks, finished with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Cook the oysters

  1. Place the oysters in a saucepan with their liquor and sherry wine.

  2. Cook until the edges curl and the oysters are firm.

  3. Remove the oysters and place them in a hot tureen.

Make the stew base

  1. Add milk to the oyster liquor in the saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Stir the beaten egg yolks into the hot milk.

  4. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture over the oysters in the tureen.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Provide the main body and briny flavor of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a smooth, creamy base when gently heated.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that carries the oysters and sets with the yolks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the stew.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and nutty aroma that brightens the oyster flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks into the hot milk. If the milk is too hot or added too quickly, the yolks can scramble into curds instead of thickening smoothly. Tempering the yolks with a little hot liquid first and stirring constantly helps keep the custard-like base silky.

“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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