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Oyster Stew

A savory stew of oysters cooked in butter, milk, and oyster liquor, served with oyster crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Clean the oysters by placing them in a colander and pouring ¾ cup cold water over them.

  2. Carefully pick over the oysters and reserve the liquor.

  3. Heat the reserved liquor to boiling point and strain it through double cheesecloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the oysters to the strained liquor and cook until they are plump and the edges begin to curl.

  2. Remove the oysters with a skimmer and place them in a tureen with butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the strained oyster liquor and milk to the tureen.

  4. Serve with oyster crackers.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture of the stew when cooked only until plump.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and mellows the briny oyster liquor.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters until plump and edges curl. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be removed as soon as they plump and the edges begin to curl. Protein in the flesh tightens with prolonged heat, making them rubbery.

“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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