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Darioles of Oysters

A steamed pastry filled with oysters, made with flour, butter, milk, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Darioles of Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove gills from oysters and scald them in their liquor.

  2. Strain the oysters, cut each into 4 or 5 pieces, and set aside.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine flour and butter, then add the oyster liquor and milk, stirring until boiling.

  2. Add seasoning and beaten eggs, then fold in the oysters.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter some Dariole moulds, pour in the mixture, and steam gently for 20 minutes.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when steamed.
Flour
Cooked with butter and milk, flour thickens the liquid into a stable sauce that holds the oysters.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving body and a soft, tender texture.
Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and a tender, briny texture throughout the dish.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce before adding eggs. Stirring the flour, butter and liquid until boiling gelatinises the starch so the sauce thickens. If the eggs are added to a sauce that is not fully thickened, or is too hot, they can scramble or curdle, leaving the set custard grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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