Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Fritters

A batter of oysters, milk, eggs, and flour fried in beef dripping or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Oyster Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Open the oysters and strain the liquor into a basin.

  2. Add the milk and beaten eggs to the oyster liquor.

  3. Gradually stir in enough flour to make a smooth, thin batter.

  4. Add the oysters to the batter and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the beef dripping or butter in a clean frying pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat, placing one or more oysters in each spoonful.

  3. Cook until one side is a delicate brown, then turn each fritter to brown the other side.

  4. Remove the fritters to a hot dish and serve.

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. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 flavour and tender pieces studded through each fritter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the fritters as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a batter that holds its shape in the fat.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter, along with richness.
Beef dripping or butter
Conducts heat and browns the outside of the fritters while frying.

The step that matters

Frying the fritters in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly on contact. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy instead of crisp and golden.

“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.

More oyster fritters recipes

Mock 4 See all 129 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes