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For Boiled Chicken

A dish of boiled oysters in a butter and flour sauce with oyster liquor, milk or cream, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

For Boiled Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Strain the oyster liquor into a saucepan.

  2. Add the oysters to the saucepan.

  3. Heat slowly without boiling.

  4. Remove the oysters.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix 3 ounces of butter with 2 teaspoons of flour until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the liquor.

  3. Cook until it boils and is well mixed.

  4. Add the milk or cream.

  5. Stir until it boils again.

  6. Season with salt and cayenne.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the oysters to the mixture.

  2. Keep warm by the fire until thoroughly hot.

  3. Serve in a well-heated tureen immediately.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Oysters
Main ingredient; gently cooked so they stay plump and tender rather than toughening.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the sauce's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Heat slowly without boiling. Oysters are delicate protein. High heat makes them firm and rubbery and can cause them to curdle, so they should be heated gently until just hot.

“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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