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Sauce

Oyster Sauce

A sauce made by melting butter, adding oysters, vinegar or lemon juice, and boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan to make a drawn butter sauce.

  2. Add drained small oysters and a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil 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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  2. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Oyster + vinegartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the base of the drawn butter sauce and adds richness and a smooth texture.
Small oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender texture of the sauce.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and oyster flavour.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil. Once the butter and oysters are combined, boiling can cause the butter emulsion to separate and the oysters to toughen. Keeping the heat controlled helps the sauce stay smooth and the oysters tender.

“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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