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Broiled Oysters

A dish of oysters broiled with salt, pepper, cracker crumbs, butter, horseradish, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select the largest oysters and ensure no shell particles are attached.

  2. Dry the oysters with a linen cloth.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with finely powdered cracker.

Broil and serve

  1. Place on an oyster gridiron over a hot fire.

  2. Once plump, dip each oyster in melted butter.

  3. Serve on a hot dish garnished with horseradish and parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Oyster + horseradishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Large oysters
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a plump, tender texture over heat.
Melted fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the oysters after they plump.
Finely powdered cracker
Forms a light crumb coating that helps the oysters brown and absorb flavour.

The step that matters

Placing the oysters on the gridiron over a hot fire. Heat must be strong enough to plump the oysters quickly without drying them out. Overcooking toughens the meat, so watch for the plump stage and remove them promptly.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, butter, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, butter, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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