Skip to main content
Main

Devilled Oysters, Stewed

Stewed devilled oysters with cream, butter, parsley, béchamel, egg yolks, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Devilled Oysters, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Open, drain, trim, and coarsely chop the oysters.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the oysters, cream, butter, and chopped parsley.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne, then stir over medium heat for a few minutes.

  4. Thicken the mixture with béchamel sauce and bind with egg yolks, stirring until it sets.

Fill and bake

  1. Prepare the cleaned and dry oyster shells, then fill them with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.

  3. Serve on a folded napkin, garnished with 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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
Form the main body of the filling and provide its briny flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set into a creamy, firm texture when heated.
Béchamel sauce
Thickens the mixture so it holds together in the shells.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Binding with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, so the filling must be stirred over gentle heat until just thickened. If it overheats, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy instead of creamy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, butter, pepper, sauce, egg, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, butter, pepper, sauce, egg, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes