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Mock Stewed Oysters

A stew of oyster plant (salsify) cooked in vinegar, water, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mock Stewed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oyster plant

  1. Wash and scrape the oyster plant carefully.

  2. Drop the oyster plant into a mixture of weak vinegar and water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Cook the oyster plant for 10 minutes.

  5. Turn off the vinegar water.

  6. Rinse the oyster plant in boiling water.

  7. Discard the rinsing water.

  8. Cover the oyster plant with fresh boiling water.

Stew

  1. Stew the oyster plant gently for another 10 minutes.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and 2 tablespoons of butter to the stew.

  3. Continue to stew until the oyster plant is tender.

Make the milk sauce and serve

  1. Heat the milk in a separate pot.

  2. Thicken the milk with flour or corn-starch.

  3. Add the remaining butter to the milk mixture.

  4. Keep the milk mixture warm until the oyster plant is done.

  5. Combine the warm milk mixture with the oyster plant stew.

  6. Let everything sit together in a warm pot for 5 minutes before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  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

Oyster plant (salsify)
Provides the main body and the mild, oyster-like flavour of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stew and milk sauce.
Flour or corn-starch
Thickens the milk so it coats the vegetable and gives the stew body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that carries the flavour and softens the stew.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with flour or corn-starch. Starch must be fully cooked in hot liquid to swell and thicken; if it is added without enough stirring or heat, it clumps or leaves a raw, floury taste and the sauce stays thin.

“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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