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Oysters with Currie Sauce

Oysters served on skewers with a broth of oyster liquor, lemon, salt, and bread crumbs, accompanied by currie sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oysters with Currie Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the oysters

  1. Combine oyster liquor, lemon juice, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over low heat until halfway done.

  3. Add blanched oysters and simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Skewer and broil

  1. Skewer oysters alternately on small wooden or silver skewers.

  2. Dip skewers in the oyster liquor and coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Broil over a clear fire until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with currie sauce underneath.

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. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

  4. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Oysters
Form the main substance of the dish and turn tender when gently simmered.
Oyster liquor
Adds briny flavour and moisture to the poaching liquid and the dipping coat.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the skewered oysters under the broiler.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the briny oyster flavour.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire until browned. Oysters overcook quickly, becoming rubbery, so they need only enough heat to brown the crumb coating. Watch closely and remove them once golden.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pumpkinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, sauce. 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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