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Oyster Fricassee

A buttery oyster sauce served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over a brisk, clear fire until it browns.

  2. Gradually add the strained liquor from the oysters.

  3. Thicken the mixture with brown flour until it reaches a rich sauce consistency.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer the oysters in the sauce until the edges curl.

  2. Serve the fricassee on three-cornered pieces of toasted bread with the crust removed.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, 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
Browns in the pan to give the sauce a nutty, rich flavour and fat for body.
Brown flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a rich sauce as its starch gelatinises with heat.
Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour, and their edges curl as the proteins set when simmered.
Bread
Toasted slices give a crisp, absorbent base that holds the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the oysters until the edges curl. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, while undercooking leaves them raw. Brief simmering in the sauce sets the edges just enough to keep 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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