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Oysters on Toast

Oysters on Toast is a simple dish of toasted bread topped with sautéed oysters in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oysters on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the bread slices until golden brown.

  2. Heat the oyster liquor from the can until very hot.

  3. Quickly dip each slice in the hot oyster liquor.

  4. Place the dipped slices on a hot platter.

Cook the oysters

  1. Melt the butter in a pan until very hot.

  2. Add the drained oysters to the pan and cook for 1 minute, turning constantly.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Spread the oysters on the toast and serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and the tender, briny filling of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the oysters brown lightly in the hot pan.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the oysters and soaks up the liquor.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters for 1 minute. Oysters turn rubbery when overcooked, so they need only a brief stay in very hot butter, turned constantly, until just cooked 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.

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