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Curry of Oysters

A buttery oyster curry simmered with onions, flour, curry powder, and oyster liquor, served over plain boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curry of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and cook the sliced onion until golden.

  2. Drain the oysters and boil the liquor, skimming it.

Make the sauce

  1. In the butter, mix the flour, curry powder, and salt.

  2. Add the oyster liquor, stirring until boiling.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and cook the oysters a few at a time until browned on both sides.

  2. Transfer the cooked oysters to the sauce and serve hot over a border of plain boiled rice.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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 protein and savoury flavour of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and curry mixture into a sauce.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the dish.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it turns golden in the butter.
Butter
Carries the spices and onion and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the oysters on the griddle. Oysters cook quickly and turn rubbery if overcooked. Browning them briefly in small batches gives colour and flavour without drying them out, and crowding the griddle would steam them instead of browning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, oyster, flour, rice. 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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