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Creamed Oysters on Toast

A toasted bread topped with a creamy oyster mixture made from milk, oysters, cornstarch, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Creamed Oysters on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the hot toast on a large platter.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Add the oysters to the boiling milk.

Make the creamed oysters

  1. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch or flour with a little milk until smooth, then stir it into the oyster mixture.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, then add the butter.

  3. Pour the mixture over the toast and serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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 seafood flavor and the tender body of the dish.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the sauce is built on.
Cornstarch or flour
Thickens the hot milk so it becomes a smooth, creamy sauce rather than watery.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Bread
Toasted slices give the creamed oysters a crisp base to sit on.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch or flour must be mixed smooth with a little cold milk first, then stirred into hot liquid. Added dry, it clumps and stays grainy, and the sauce will not thicken evenly. Keep the mixture moving as it thickens.

“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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