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Ilmtres Aux Fines Herbes

Oysters coated in herbs, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried and served with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ilmtres Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters on a cloth and trim them.

  2. Dip the oysters in oiled butter and sprinkle with savory herbs.

  3. Let them set and cool slightly.

  4. Beat the egg and use it to coat the oysters, then cover with seasoned bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the oysters in hot fat or clarified butter until golden.

  2. Serve on rings of lemon, garnished with fresh parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 briefly so the coating sets while the inside stays tender.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the oysters during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot fat.
Oiled butter
Gives the herbs something to stick to and adds richness to the coating.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the crumb coating absorbs grease and turns soggy before it browns. Hot fat sets the coating quickly, giving a crisp golden crust while the oyster stays 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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