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Oysters

A steamed oyster souffle made with butter, egg yolks, cream, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Soak the oysters for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the oysters and squeeze out moisture using a cloth.

  3. In a saucepan, melt 1 oz of butter. Sprinkle the melted butter with coarse sea salt.

  4. Stir the butter over moderate heat until it doesn't stick.

  5. Scald the oysters in their liquor. Drain the oysters.

  6. Remove the beards from the oysters.

Make the souffle base

  1. Place the oysters in a mortar with 1½ oz of panada.

  2. Pound the mixture to a pulp.

  3. Mix in the yolks of 3 eggs and 1 oz of butter.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a basin.

  5. Stir in 1 teacup of oyster liquor and 1 teacup of whipped cream.

  6. Add cayenne, salt, lemon juice, and the whipped egg whites, stirring lightly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle mold.

  2. Cover the mold with buttered paper.

  3. Steam the souffle over boiling water for 30 minutes.

  4. Turn the souffle onto a dish.

  5. Pour oyster sauce over the souffle before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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, once pounded, the body of the souffle.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add richness and structure as they set.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the mixture and let it rise.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the souffle tender.
Panada
Binds the pounded oysters and helps hold the mixture together.

The step that matters

Stirring in the whipped egg whites. Folding in the egg whites lightly keeps the foam trapped in the mixture. Vigorous stirring knocks out air, so the souffle rises less and turns dense.

“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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