Skip to main content
Main

Curried Oysters

A curry stew of oysters with onion, coconut, tamarind or apple, tomatoes and vegetable marrow, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tamarind and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 137 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Curried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the oysters into a basin, keeping their liquor.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the onion and fry until rich brown.

  4. Stir in more butter and curry powder, mixing well.

Make the curry

  1. Gradually add hot water or broth, cover, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the grated coconut and sour tamarinds or chopped apple.

  3. Simmer until the apple dissolves and the coconut is tender.

  4. Mix in the thickening and salt, then boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the boiled vegetable marrow and tomatoes, if using.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the oysters with their liquor and coconut milk.

  2. Let the curry stew gently for a few minutes.

  3. Add the lemon juice and stir occasionally until the oysters are cooked.

  4. Serve with rice on the side.

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. Tamarind + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tamarindtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tamarind + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 protein, which cooks quickly and becomes tender in the hot curry.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps fry the onion and bloom the curry powder.
Onion
Frying until rich brown builds sweetness and savoury depth into the sauce base.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice blend that gives the dish its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, body and sweetness to the curry sauce as it simmers.
Flour and water thickening
Thickens the curry into a stew-like sauce that coats the oysters.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters with the lemon juice. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be stirred in late and cooked only until they are just done. Gentle heat keeps them tender.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, onion, meat, tamarind, flour, tomato):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, onion, meat, tamarind, flour, tomato. 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

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes