Name: Devilled Oysters
Ingredients: 1 quart raw oysters, drained; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, chopped; 2 raw egg yolks, beaten; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ cup bread crumbs; 1 tablespoon butter; 12 cleaned oyster shells

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the filling

Chop the drained oysters and mix with cayenne pepper, lemon juice, coarse sea salt, and the chopped hard-boiled egg yolks.
Stir in the beaten raw egg yolks and half the amount of bread crumbs.
Fill the cleaned oyster shells with the oyster mixture.

Bake

Sprinkle the tops with the remaining bread crumbs and dot with butter.
Bake 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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

Raw oysters: Provide the main body and briny flavor of the filling.
Egg yolks: Bind the mixture and add richness, helping it hold together in the shells.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and add texture, with the topping browning in the oven.
Butter: Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor on the topping.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich filling and balances the flavors.

The step that matters

Bake for a few minutes until browned. Oysters cook quickly and turn rubbery if overbaked, so watch closely until the crumb topping is golden and the filling is just heated through.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Devilled Oysters