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Scalloped Oyster Plant

A baked dish of boiled oyster plant with butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, milk, bread crumbs, and optional celery salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Oyster Plant

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 the base

  1. Boil the oyster plant until tender.

  2. Remove from water and rub through a colander.

  3. Add butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and milk; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and cover with bread crumbs and small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster plant
Provides the main body and mild flavor of the dish once boiled and pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the mashed base.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, pepper, milk, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, pepper, milk, bread. 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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