Skip to main content
Main

Spiced Oysters

A preserved oyster dish flavored with mace, allspice, pepper, cloves, vinegar, and pickles.

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

Why it works: Allspice and clove 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. Scald the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Remove oysters and place them on a clean cloth to cool.

Make the pickle

  1. Strain the liquor and add an equal amount of water.

  2. Boil the mixture, skimming off the scum.

  3. Add mace, allspice, black pepper, cloves, vinegar, and pickles; boil for 3 minutes.

Pickle and store

  1. Place oysters in a stoneware pot and pour the pickle over them.

  2. Cover tightly and store in a cool place.

  3. They will be ready to use the next day.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 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, cooked briefly in their liquor and then flavoured by the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.
Black pepper
Adds mild heat and sharpness to the pickle.
Cloves
Add strong, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.
Mace
Adds delicate, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling liquor. Skimming off the scum as the mixture boils removes proteins and impurities that would otherwise cloud the pickle and spoil its clean flavour.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

You might also like

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