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Beefsteak with Oyster Sauce

Beef steak served with a sauce made from oysters, milk, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Beefsteak with Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steaks

  1. Broil the steaks over a clear fire, turning often, for 8 to 10 minutes depending on thickness.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, then remove them and strain the liquor.

  2. Add enough milk to the strained liquor to make ½ cup.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour rubbed smooth in butter, stirring constantly until thick and smooth.

  4. Add the oysters to the sauce and heat through without boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the oyster sauce over the steak and serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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 flavor and briny character of the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and mild sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps blend the flour smoothly for thickening.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour rubbed smooth in butter. Flour must be fully blended into the butter and stirred constantly so it thickens evenly without lumps. Starch thickens as it heats, so stirring keeps it smooth.

“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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