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Escaloped Oysters

Escaloped oysters are baked oysters topped with butter, breadcrumbs, and buttered bread pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Escaloped 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a pie plate and cover the bottom with fine bread crumbs.

  3. If using shell oysters, wash them thoroughly and strain before using.

Assemble

  1. Add a layer of oysters and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Alternate layers of crumbs and oysters until you have three layers, finishing with crumbs on top.

  3. Dot the top with small pieces of butter and arrange the buttered bread pieces around the edge.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. Bread + oystertop 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 savory filling that cooks into tender, briny layers.
Bread crumbs
Form absorbent layers that soak up oyster liquor and hold the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Wash and strain shell oysters. Grit and loose shell fragments cling to shell oysters and can ruin the texture. Thorough washing and straining removes them before the oysters are layered and baked.

“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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