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Oyster

Oysters simmered in their liquor with anchovy liquor, lemon, mace, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Oyster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the oyster liquor through a fine sieve.

  2. Wash the oysters and remove the gills.

  3. Place the oysters in a saucepan and pour the liquor over them.

  4. Add the anchovy liquor, juice of half a lemon, and mace.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the mixture with butter rolled in flour.

  2. Add the butter and bring to a boil until melted.

  3. Remove the mace and squeeze in the lemon juice.

  4. Boil while stirring continuously.

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. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 substance and tender, briny flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour helps thicken the liquid into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquor into a sauce when cooked with butter.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the concentrated briny flavour and forms the base of the sauce.
Anchovy liquor
Adds a savoury, salty depth that enriches the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring continuously. Flour thickens only when heated enough for its starch to swell, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base. Stopping early leaves a thin or pasty sauce, while letting it sit can make it stick and burn.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, anchovy, lemon, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, anchovy, lemon, butter, flour. 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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