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Oyster Ketchup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and port wine work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 914 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Oyster Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut up the tails, separating them at the joints, and wash them.

  2. Put the tails in a stewpan with butter.

  3. Cut the vegetables into slices and add them along with the peppercorns and herbs.

  4. Add ½ pint of water and stir over high heat until the juices are drawn.

  5. Fill the stewpan with water, and when boiling, add the salt.

  6. Skim well and simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

  7. Remove the tails, skim, and strain the soup.

  8. Thicken the soup with flour and flavor with ketchup and port wine.

  9. Return the tails to the soup, simmer for 5 minutes, and serve.

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. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Ketchup + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Ketchup + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ketchup, port wine, butter):

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, port wine, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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