Skip to main content
Main

Oysters a LA Poulette or Fricasser

A creamy oyster sauce with butter, flour, egg yolks, and seasonings, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oysters a LA Poulette or Fricasser

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Carefully examine the oysters for any shell pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour over low heat.

  3. Gradually add the oyster liquor, stirring until smooth; if needed, add water to achieve a cream-like consistency.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil for 1 minute.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters and cook until the edges curl, then remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks, salad oil, and vinegar or lemon juice.

  3. Add the chopped parsley and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the roux with fat, adding richness and smooth flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquor into a smooth, cream-like sauce.
Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture, cooking until their edges curl.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a silky, emulsified body.
Salad oil
Adds fat that helps emulsify the yolks, lending a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot. Removing the pan from heat before adding them lets the yolks thicken the sauce gently and keeps it smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, oyster, pepper, egg, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Capersabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Dillabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, oyster, pepper, egg, vinegar, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes