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Oyster Stew

A simple stew of oysters simmered in water with butter, salt, and pepper, served with toast strips and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the oysters in 2 cups of water.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. When the edges of the oysters begin to curl, remove from heat.

  4. Serve with hot buttered toast strips and fresh celery.

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

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

  3. Oyster + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,131 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

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 gently in water until their edges curl.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Remove from heat when the edges curl. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overcooked, so they should come off the heat as soon as the edges begin to curl.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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