Skip to main content
Main

Oysters

Broiled oysters served with melted butter, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the oyster liquor first.

  2. Place the oysters side by side in a greased double-wire broiler.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the oysters on both sides over a very hot fire until done.

  2. Open the oysters into a hot dish containing melted butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Serve with toast on the side.

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
The main ingredient, cooked quickly in the shell so the flesh stays tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor over the hot oysters.

The step that matters

Broil on both sides until done. Oyster flesh toughens and becomes rubbery when overcooked. Very high heat cooks it quickly, so it needs close watching and should be removed as soon as it firms and its edges curl.

“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.

More broiled oysters recipes

on Toast 4 See all 108 →

You might also like

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