Name: To Scallop Oysters
Ingredients: 100 oysters; 4 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped; 1 sixpenny loaf, crumbled or grated; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; butter

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 ↓

To Scallop Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the chopped eggs, crumbled bread, pepper, and salt.

Assemble

In a pie dish, layer some of the mixture at the bottom.
Add a layer of rinsed and drained oysters, followed by bits of butter.
Cover with another layer of the bread mixture, then more oysters, and repeat the layers.
Finish with a top layer of bread crumbs.

Bake

Bake for 45 minutes.

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.

Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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: Provide the main savoury flavour and tender, briny body that the casserole is built around.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and body to the bread mixture, helping the layers hold together as they set.
Bread (in the method): Soaks up moisture and forms the soft, absorbent layers that bind the casserole together.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and the layers taste rounded.

“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.