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Curried Oysters

A savory oyster curry with butter, onions, curry powder, coconut, tamarind or apple, thickened with flour, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 the base

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

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

  3. Add the sliced onion and fry until rich brown.

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

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

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

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

Thicken and finish

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

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

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

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

  5. Add the strained lemon juice and stir occasionally.

  6. 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. Tamarind + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture when gently stewed in the curry.
Onion
Frying until rich brown builds sweetness and deep savoury flavour as the base of the curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and colour that define the dish, especially when bloomed in butter.
Cocoa-nut meat
Adds richness, body and a mild sweetness as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Flour and water thickening
Thickens the curry liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the oysters.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters. Oysters cook quickly and turn rubbery if boiled hard. Stirring them in near the end and letting the curry stew gently keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Lemonthe 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.

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