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Devilled Oysters

Devilled oysters are baked oysters mixed with egg yolks, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Chop the drained oysters thoroughly and mix with cayenne pepper, lemon juice, coarse sea salt, and the yolks of the hard-boiled and raw eggs.

  2. Add half as much bread crumbs as oysters.

  3. Mix in the butter.

Fill and bake

  1. Clean one dozen deep shells.

  2. Fill the shells with the oyster mixture.

  3. Sprinkle the tops with additional bread crumbs.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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 filling and a briny, savory flavor base.
Egg yolks
Bind the chopped oysters and crumbs together and add richness to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the oysters and give the filling body, then brown on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the briny oyster flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until just browned. Oysters are delicate and overcook quickly, turning rubbery and dry. Baking only until the topping browns keeps the oysters tender and moist.

“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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