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Curried Oysters

A stew of oysters simmered with butter, onion, curry powder, cocoa nut, tamarind or apple, thickened with flour and water, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tamarind and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 137 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Curried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Open the oysters into a basin, keeping their liquor.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the onion and fry until rich brown.

  4. Stir in more butter and curry powder, mixing well.

  5. Gradually add hot water or broth, cover, and bring to a boil.

Simmer and thicken

  1. Add the grated cocoa nut and sour tamarinds or chopped apple.

  2. Simmer until the apple is dissolved and the cocoa nut is tender.

  3. Stir in the thickening and salt, then boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the boiled vegetable marrow and tomatoes, if using.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oysters with their liquor and cocoa nut milk, stirring well.

  2. Let the curry stew gently for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and serve with rice.

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. Tamarind + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tamarind + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + tamarindtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture when gently stewed in the curry.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's aroma and adds richness to the onion base.
Onion
Browns to build sweetness and depth as the base of the curry.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma and colour that define the dish.
Cocoa nut
Adds body and creamy milk that carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour and water thickening
Thickens the sauce to a stew-like consistency during boiling.

The step that matters

Add the oysters at the end and stew gently. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked, so they should be added late and kept at a gentle simmer for only a few minutes.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, onion, meat, tamarind, flour, tomato):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, onion, meat, tamarind, flour, tomato. 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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