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Cream Oysters

A dish of oysters cooked in a cream and milk mixture, served with whipped cream and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cream Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub together the butter and cracker meal.

  2. Heat the cream and milk in a saucepan.

  3. When the milk begins to steam, add the oysters.

  4. Once the oysters' lips begin to curl, add the butter, cracker meal, and seasoning.

Serve

  1. Preheat bouillon cups by warming them.

  2. Fill the cups nearly full with the oyster mixture.

  3. Top each cup with a tablespoon of stiff whipped cream.

  4. Serve immediately with hot crackers.

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

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

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

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

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main body and briny flavor of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Cracker meal
Thickens the sauce slightly so it becomes creamy rather than watery.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters to the hot milk. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when overcooked. Adding them once the edges just begin to curl, rather than letting them boil, keeps them 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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