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Cream Oysters

Cream oysters are oysters cooked with butter, salt, red pepper, egg yolks, and cream, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the oysters

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add salt and red pepper.

  3. Cook the oysters until the edges curl.

  4. Mix the egg yolks with the cream and add to the oysters.

  5. Cook for two to three minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
The main ingredient, cooked briefly until the edges curl to keep them tender.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they gently set with heat, giving the dish a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture that softens the flavor of the oysters.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the oysters and adds a rich, savory flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so if the mixture gets too hot or is cooked too fast it can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat moderate and stir gently so the sauce stays smooth.

“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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