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Oyster Souffle

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the meat of the whitings in a mortar and rub it through a fine sieve.

  2. Blanch and remove gills from the oysters, cutting each into four pieces.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix with flour over heat until combined.

  4. Add the oyster liquor and stir until thickened and cooked.

  5. Combine the sauce and whitings meat in the mortar, adding eggs one at a time, salt, cayenne, oysters, and whipped cream.

  6. Butter a mold, pour in the mixture, cover with buttered paper, and steam gently for 30 minutes.

  7. For a richer dish, use ½ pint of whipped cream instead of the white sauce.

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

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

  2. Cream + whitingtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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. Oyster + whitingtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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