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Oystee Omelet

A savory omelet made with oysters, eggs, butter, flour, and a seasoned sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Oystee Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Parboil the oysters in their own liquor.

  2. Skim the oysters out and let them cool.

Make the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Add the oysters, either whole or minced.

  3. Cook the mixture like a plain omelet.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter.

  2. Whisk in the flour to thicken the liquid.

  3. Season the sauce with salt, cayenne pepper, and chopped parsley.

  4. Chop the oysters and add them to the sauce.

  5. Place a few spoonfuls of the sauce in the center of the omelet before folding.

  6. When serving, pour the remaining sauce around the omelet.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender, briny filling in the omelet and sauce.
Eggs
Set into the structure of the omelet while holding the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps the pan release the omelet.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and oyster liquid into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Whisk in the flour to thicken the liquid. Flour must be cooked briefly in the melted butter and whisked smooth before the liquid is added, or it forms lumps and the sauce tastes raw and pasty. Cooking it in fat also lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, butter, flour, pepper. 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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