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Steamed Oysters in the Shell

Steamed oysters in the shell, served hot with butter, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Steamed Oysters in the Shell

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the oysters and place them in an air-tight vessel with the upper shell downward.

Steam

  1. Put the vessel over a pot of boiling water to steam the oysters.

  2. Boil rapidly until the shells open, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately while hot, seasoned with butter, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

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

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 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

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient; steaming cooks the meat gently while the shells open.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour across the hot oyster meat.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until the shells open. Steam must stay vigorous so the oysters cook through and the shells open. Gentle heat can leave the meat undercooked and the shells closed, so keep the pot at a full boil.

“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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