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Creamed Oysters

A creamy oyster dish made with oysters, cream, milk, butter, flour, and optional sherry and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Creamed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Drain the oysters and reserve the liquor.

  2. In a chafing dish, heat the oyster liquor, cream, and milk over medium heat.

  3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and flour together.

  4. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the heating cream until it thickens.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the oysters a few at a time and cook for about two minutes.

  2. Pour in the sherry, if using, and stir to combine.

  3. If desired, omit sherry and add parsley.

  4. Serve in timbal cases or on toast.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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
Provide the main flavour and tender texture of the dish.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Thins the cream base slightly while keeping the sauce smooth and pourable.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream by gelatinizing its starch as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and is blended with flour to form a roux-like thickener.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour mixture into the heating cream until it thickens. Flour must be fully dispersed and heated so its starch swells and thickens the sauce; adding it lumpy or without stirring causes clumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, milk, butter, flour, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, milk, butter, flour, sherry. 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.

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