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Oyster Rarebit

A savory oyster dish with cheese, butter, eggs, and oyster liquor served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Parboil the oysters in their liquor, then drain and return the liquor to a boil.

  2. Strain the boiled liquor.

Make the rarebit

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter and add pepper and salt.

  2. Stir in the finely chopped cheese until melted.

  3. Add ½ cup of the oyster liquor and the oysters, heating them through.

  4. Finally, stir in the well-beaten eggs.

  5. Serve the mixture on toast.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 a tender, briny body to the mixture.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cheese melt smoothly into the sauce.
Eggs
Thicken the mixture gently as they heat, giving it body and a creamy set.

The step that matters

Stir in the well-beaten eggs. Eggs thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the mixture is too hot. Keep the heat low and stir steadily so they blend into a smooth, creamy sauce.

“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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