Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Oyster Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix in a little water and flour to make a fairly stiff batter.
Open the can of oysters, drain them, and add them to the batter.
Fry and serve
Using skewers, fish out the oysters, lightly dust them with cayenne, and dip them back into the batter.
Fry the oysters in hot fat until crisp.
Drain the oysters before serving and remove them from skewers onto a hot dish.
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.
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Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,663 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,582 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Bind the flour and water into a batter that coats the oysters and sets when fried.
- Flour
- Thickens the egg mixture into a stiff batter that clings to the oysters and crisps when fried.
- Oysters
- Serve as the main filling, enclosed in the batter and fried until crisp.
The step that matters
Frying the oysters in hot fat until crisp. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of setting and crisping quickly. Draining the fritters well afterward also helps keep the coating crisp.
“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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