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Scalloped Oyster-plant

A baked dish of stewed oyster plant with butter, milk, salt, cayenne, topped with grated bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped Oyster-plant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the purée

  1. Boil the oyster plant until perfectly tender.

  2. Remove from water and rub through a colander.

  3. Add 2 ounces of butter, milk, salt, and cayenne pepper; mix well.

  4. If the mixture is not hot enough to melt the butter, warm it on the range for a few minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish placed in a pan of water.

  2. Top with fine grated bread and dot with remaining butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster plant
Forms the soft, creamy body of the dish once tender and pressed smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Milk
Loosens the purée so it stays moist and spoonable in the baking dish.
Fine grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden crust on top during baking.

The step that matters

Rubbing the oyster plant through a colander. Pushing the tender pieces through a colander breaks down fibres into a smooth, even purée. Leftover lumps or stringy fibres stay coarse in the finished dish, so the texture depends on this step.

“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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