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Creamed Oysters

Creamed oysters are oysters simmered in a butter, flour, and milk sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, and celery salt, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash and pick over the oysters, then cook them until plump and the edges curl.

  2. Drain the oysters and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the scalded milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters to the sauce along with salt, pepper, and celery salt.

  2. Serve the creamed oysters on 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient, with flavor and a tender texture when cooked until plump.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flavor into the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter as a roux.
Milk
Forms the body of the sauce, becoming creamy as it thickens with the roux.

The step that matters

Adding the scalded milk to the roux. Adding the milk gradually while stirring keeps the flour smooth and lets the sauce thicken evenly without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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