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Curried Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in a butter, corn starch, curry powder, and milk sauce.

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

Curried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, mix together the butter, corn starch, curry powder, liquor from oysters, and onion.

  2. Heat the mixture and gradually add the milk mixed with salt.

  3. Stir until very smooth, then add the oysters.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes and serve with rice croquettes.

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

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a rich mouthfeel and carrying the curry flavour.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and clings to the oysters.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced, aromatic flavour of the dish.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, mellowing the sauce into a smooth base.
Oysters
Supply the main seafood flavour and tender texture when briefly cooked in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until very smooth before adding the oysters. Corn starch thickens as it heats, and if the milk is added too quickly it can clump before dispersing. Stirring until smooth ensures an even, glossy sauce, and adding the oysters only after this keeps them from being overcooked in a lumpy base.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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