Skip to main content
Main

Oysters a LA Mode

A dish of oyster quenelles made with bread, butter, eggs, and spices, served with white sauce and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oysters a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix grated bread, salt, white pepper, mace, cayenne, butter, lemon rind, and parsley in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Stir in chopped oysters, egg yolks, egg white, and a little oyster liquid to bind the mixture.

  3. Pound the mixture until smooth.

Shape and poach

  1. Use a spoon to shape quenelles, smoothing the surface with a knife dipped in hot water.

  2. Transfer the quenelles to a buttered dish and repeat until all are formed.

  3. Poach the quenelles in boiling water until firm, then arrange them in a circle on a serving plate.

Serve

  1. Mask the quenelles with white sauce, drizzle some sauce around, and garnish with lobster coral, truffle cuttings, and lemon slices.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Provides body and structure to the quenelle mixture, absorbing moisture and holding its shape.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it, setting firm when poached.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps bind the mixture so the quenelles hold their shape.
Oysters
Supply the main flavour and a tender, moist texture throughout the quenelles.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the quenelles a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Poach until firm, not boiling hard. Quenelles are delicate and bound with egg. Poaching gently in simmering water sets the egg gradually, giving a firm but tender texture. Vigorous boiling can break the mixture apart and make it rubbery.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mace, pepper, butter, lemon, parsley, oyster):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mace, pepper, butter, lemon, parsley, oyster. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipes