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Spiced Oysters

A preserved oyster dish flavored with cloves, allspice, mace, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and strain the liquor through a sieve.

Spice and cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the oyster liquor, oysters, cloves, allspice, mace, cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat and bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat.

Cool and store

  1. Pour into a large bowl to cool.

  2. When cooled, transfer the oysters to Mason jars for storage.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, providing the dish's flesh and briny flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the oysters.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the liquor.
Allspice berries
Add warm, peppery aroma that complements the oysters.

The step that matters

Bringing to a boil and then removing from heat. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked. Bringing the mixture just to a boil and then taking it off the heat briefly cooks the oysters while keeping them tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, clove, allspice, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, clove, allspice, pepper, vinegar. 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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