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Oyster Cutlets

A fried dish of oysters, chicken, and breadcrumbs bound with eggs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oyster Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the oyster liquor.

  2. Chop the oysters finely and mix with the soaked crumbs, chopped chicken, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. In a pan, cook the flour and butter until frothy, then add the oyster mixture and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs and cook until thickened.

  5. Spread the mixture on a platter to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Butter the cutlet molds.

  2. Dip the molds in crumbs.

  3. Fill the molds with the oyster mixture.

  4. Coat the filled molds in crumbs again.

  5. Dip the coated molds in beaten egg mixed with water.

  6. Coat the molds in crumbs once more.

Fry

  1. Fry the coated molds in hot lard until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provide the main savory flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set it firm when cooked until thickened.
Flour
Thickens the butter and oyster mixture so it holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the oyster liquor to add moisture and body to the filling, and form the crisp outer coating.
Chicken
Adds meaty body and bulk to the filling alongside the oysters.
Butter
Adds richness and helps cook the flour into a smooth base.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm on the platter so it holds its shape in the molds. Shaping a warm, soft filling makes it slump and tear, and the coating may fall off in the hot lard.

“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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