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Oyster Souffle

A lightly browned oyster mixture cooked in butter.

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 Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine oysters, eggs, milk, salt, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the walnut-sized piece of butter in a hot pan until smoking.

  2. Add the oyster mixture to the pan and stir lightly with an egg whisk.

  3. Cook until the mixture is a delicate brown.

  4. Serve immediately on a hot platter.

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. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and structure the mixture, giving the souffle its body as they cook.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the dish.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the egg mixture tender.
Butter
Fat for the pan that helps the surface brown and prevents sticking.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture is a delicate brown. Egg proteins set with heat, so cooking too long makes the souffle dry and rubbery, while too little leaves it runny. Watch the colour closely and remove it as soon as it reaches a light golden brown.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Pecansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, milk, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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