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Indian Oysters Curried

A curry of oysters simmered with onion, curry powder, coconut, apple, and coconut milk, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Indian Oysters Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open and remove gills from the oysters, preserving their liquor.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the minced onion until tender.

  2. Stir in the curry powder, add more butter, and gradually pour in the seasoned stock.

  3. Once boiling, stir in the desiccated coconut and minced apple.

  4. Simmer gently until the apple dissolves, then thicken with flour and season with pepper and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters with their liquor and half of the coconut milk, and let stew for a few minutes, stirring gently.

  2. Finally, add the lemon juice and serve with a border of boiled rice.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main protein, cooking briefly so they stay tender and plump in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the curry powder's aroma into the onion base.
Onion
Builds a soft, sweet savoury base for the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Coconut milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, rounding out the curry sauce.

The step that matters

Add the oysters at the end and stew gently. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be added late and simmered only a few minutes, stirred gently, until just cooked.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, onion, coconut, flour, pepper, milk. 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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