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Oysters a LA Mode

A creamy oyster dish with onions, mushrooms, parsley, green onions, broth, cream, butter, arrowroot, lemon juice, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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

Make the sauce base

  1. Chop the onions and mushrooms, then combine them with the parsley and green onions.

  2. Add a few spoonfuls of broth or stock and reduce it over heat.

  3. Stir in 1 pint of cream and season well, keeping the sauce thick.

  4. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

  5. Remove gills from oysters and place them in the sauce whole.

  6. Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes, then strain the liquor and let it settle.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the settled liquor with ¼ to ½ pound of butter and a pinch of cayenne.

  2. Thicken the sauce with arrowroot, stirring until smooth.

  3. Just before serving, add the oysters to plump them without boiling, then stir in ½ tablespoon of lemon juice.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and are gently warmed so they plump without toughening.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Butter
Adds fat and silkiness, rounding out the sauce's flavour and mouthfeel.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce to a glossy, smooth consistency without clouding it.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they reduce into the sauce base.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savouriness that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters just before serving. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when boiled. Adding them at the end, off a boil, lets them warm through and plump gently while staying tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, parsley, cream, pepper, butter, arrowroot, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, parsley, cream, pepper, butter, arrowroot, lemon. 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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