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Oysters in Shells

Oysters in shells simmered in a butter‑flour cream sauce, finished with egg yolks and lemon, served with fried bread and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Oysters in Shells

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters and preserve the liquor.

  2. Remove the gills from the oysters.

  3. In a stewpan, combine the oysters, 1 oz of butter, and a little oyster liquor. Season with salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Stir over heat for 2 minutes. Strain.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the remaining 1½ oz of butter in a stewpan. Stir in the flour and cook slightly without browning.

  2. Dilute the mixture with the oyster liquor and stock. Stir until it boils, then simmer for about 10 minutes.

  3. Add the cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice. Stir over heat for a few seconds to bind the yolks.

  4. Pass the sauce through a fine strainer.

Combine and serve

  1. Return it to the saucepan with the oysters and heat thoroughly without boiling.

  2. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with fried bread and parsley.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 the tender seafood body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the oysters and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly.
Egg yolks
Bind and enrich the sauce, giving it a smooth, thick, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and cream flavours.

The step that matters

Binding the yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but scramble if the sauce boils. Stir over low heat only for a few seconds, and do not let it boil again once the yolks are in, so the sauce stays smooth.

“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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