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Oyster Pudding

A savory pudding made with fish, oysters, eggs, cream, and butter, steamed in a soufflé tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and anchovy share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Skin the whitings, remove the meat from the bones, and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and cook without browning.

  3. Moisten with the milk and oyster liquor, stirring until smooth, then add the cream.

  4. Cook a little longer while stirring continuously.

Finish the mixture

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters, dice them, and add to the mixture.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then mix in the egg yolks, anchovy essence, and pounded fish.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill a well-buttered soufflé tin or charlotte mold three-quarters full.

  2. Steam for about 45 minutes, then unmold and serve with a 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. Whiting + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Flour
Cooked in butter, it forms a roux that thickens the milk and gives the pudding body.
Butter
Fat that forms the roux base and adds richness to the pudding.
Milk
Liquid that, thickened with the roux, forms the smooth custard base.
Whitings
Pounded fish meat that gives the pudding its main savory flavor and body.
Oysters
Diced oysters and their liquor add briny, savory flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the pudding. Folding gently preserves that air; stirring or deflating the mixture leaves a dense, heavy result.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, flour, milk, anchovy, pepper, oyster, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, flour, milk, anchovy, pepper, 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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