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Oyster Fritters

A batter of oyster liquor, eggs, and flour, fried with oysters until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Strain the oyster liquor into a bowl.

  2. Add the eggs and flour, and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in the oysters until well coated.

Fry

  1. Heat butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot butter, placing one oyster in each fritter.

  3. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Oyster + buttertop 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set as the fritters cook, giving them structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that thicken the batter and hold its shape.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and a concentrated briny flavor to the batter.
Oysters
Provide the main flavor and a tender, briny bite in each fritter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the fritters, adding rich flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the butter before adding the batter. Batter dropped into fat that is not yet hot soaks up grease and cooks unevenly. Hot butter sets the outside quickly, so the fritters brown well and stay light rather than oily.

“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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