Skip to main content
Main

Oyster-plant Stewed

A stew of oyster plant cooked in salted water, seasoned with butter, vinegar, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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-plant Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oyster-plant

  1. Scrape and cut the oyster-plant into small pieces.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water.

  3. Boil well-salted water and add the oyster-plant.

  4. Drain the oyster-plant.

Make the stew

  1. Pour off the first water.

  2. Add more boiling water with 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  3. Add 3 pints of milk (or half milk and half water) to the tender vegetable.

Season and serve

  1. Season with drawn butter sauce.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

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 + milktop 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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster-plant
The main vegetable, which becomes tender and soft as it cooks in the water.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the stew, softening its flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the vegetable.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the tender vegetable. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan and curdle when it is boiled hard. Once the vegetable is tender, keep the stew at a gentle heat so the milk stays smooth and does not separate.

“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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes