Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pigs in Blankets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the rind from the bacon and parboil the slices.
Drain the fresh oysters and dip them in the beaten egg.
Roll the oysters in cracker crumbs.
Wrap and fry
Wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon and secure with a wooden toothpick.
Fry the wrapped oysters in hot fat until golden brown.
Remove the toothpicks and serve hot.
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.
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Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 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
- Thin slices of bacon
- Wraps the oysters and browns and crisps as it fries, adding savory fat.
- Fresh oysters
- Forms the main filling, cooking quickly to a tender, briny center.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick evenly to each oyster.
- Cracker crumbs
- Forms a crisp, golden coating that absorbs fat and helps the exterior brown.
The step that matters
Fry the wrapped oysters in hot fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the bacon and crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the oysters overcook before the bacon crisps and the coating turns greasy.
“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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