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Devilled Oysters

Deviled oysters are oysters mixed with spices, egg yolks, bread crumbs, and butter, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Devilled Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped oysters with cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, hard-boiled egg yolks, and beaten raw egg yolks.

  3. Add the bread crumbs and butter to the mixture and combine well.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the cleaned oyster shells with the oyster mixture.

  2. Sprinkle additional bread crumbs on top and add small bits of butter.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven for a few minutes until browned.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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 savoury flavour and the soft, tender filling body.
Raw egg yolks
Bind the filling together and enrich it as they set with heat.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add a crumbly, rich texture that thickens the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body, with a crisp browned top.
Butter
Add fat for richness and help the topping brown in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich oyster and egg flavours.

The step that matters

Baking until browned. Raw egg yolks in the filling must be heated until set, and the topping needs enough heat to brown. Overbaking can make the oysters tough and dry, so watch closely after a few minutes.

“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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