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Deviled Oysters

Oysters coated in lemon butter and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Deviled Oysters

Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Deviled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the oysters dry.

  2. Mix the lemon juice with the butter.

  3. Coat the oysters in the lemon-butter mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the oysters until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,942 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the oysters brown in the pan.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the oysters' briny flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the oysters until golden brown. Oyster meat is delicate and toughens quickly with heat. Frying only until golden keeps it tender, while overcooking makes it rubbery and dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter. 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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