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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked oysters topped with butter, parsley, pepper, lemon juice, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Open the oyster shells, setting aside the deepest ones.

  2. In a bowl, mix melted butter with minced parsley and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll each oyster in the butter mixture and place them in the shells.

  2. Add a little lemon juice to each oyster and sift bread crumbs over them.

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

  4. Serve the oysters in their shells.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 filling, cooking gently in their shells until tender.
Melted butter
Coats the oysters, adding richness and moisture so they do not dry out in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust on top that browns in the oven, adding texture contrast to the soft oysters.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and the mild flavor of the oysters.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Oysters cook quickly and turn rubbery if overbaked, while the crumb topping needs enough heat to brown. Watching for golden color signals when the oysters are just done.

“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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