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Oyster Stew

A creamy oyster stew made with oysters, milk, butter, salt, pepper, and 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: Milk and butter 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 liquor and milk

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters and place it in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Bring the liquor to a boil and skim off any scum.

  3. In a separate pot, heat the milk until it boils in hot water.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the boiling milk to the kettle with the oyster liquor.

  2. Stir in the butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the oysters and let them boil for a moment.

  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. Milk + buttertop 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 texture, and stay tender when cooked only briefly.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the stew and adds mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the briny flavor of the oyster liquor.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters and boiling for a moment. Oyster muscle proteins tighten and toughen quickly when overheated, making them shrink and rubbery. Adding them at the end and boiling only briefly keeps them tender and juicy.

“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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