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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked oysters topped with a crumb and butter mixture, finished with a thickened milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Layer the dish

  1. Butter a pudding dish.

  2. Layer oysters in the dish.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. Add a layer of cracker crumbs.

  5. Dot with bits of butter.

  6. Moisten with oyster liquor.

  7. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  8. Finish with a top layer of crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat milk and thicken with flour.

  3. Pour the thickened milk over the dish just before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main ingredient; their briny liquor moistens the layers as they cook.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the layers body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown.
Milk
Forms the creamy sauce poured over the dish.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk when heated, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with flour. Starch thickens milk only when it is heated and the flour is evenly dispersed. Flour added without stirring forms lumps and leaves the sauce thin or grainy.

“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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