Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Oysters

Deviled oysters are oysters mixed with cream, butter, flour, parsley, egg yolks, salt, and cayenne pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Deviled Oysters

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Drain the oysters and chop them finely, then drain again.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub the butter and flour together.

  3. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling cream until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and add the chopped oysters, parsley, egg yolks, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Mix well and serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient and savory seafood flavor of the dish.
Cream
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a rich, smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps bind the flour into the sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body to the sauce once it is removed from heat.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if they meet very hot liquid. Removing the pan from heat before adding them lets them thicken the sauce gently and evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, butter, flour, egg, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, butter, flour, egg, pepper. 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

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes