Skip to main content
Main

Baked Oysters and Macaroni

A baked casserole of macaroni and oysters with butter, flour, and crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Oysters and Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni into 1-inch pieces and cook in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Drain and rinse the macaroni with 1 quart of cold water to prevent sticking.

  3. Wash and pick over the oysters.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer half of the macaroni, then half of the oysters, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Dot with 2 tablespoons of butter, then add the remaining macaroni and oysters on top.

  3. Finish with buttered crumbs and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish and holds its layers together once cooked and baked.
Oysters
Supply the main savory flavor and tender, briny texture that cooks through in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Flour
Lightly thickens the juices released by the oysters, giving the layers a more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Rinsing the macaroni. Rinsing cooled pasta with cold water stops residual cooking and removes surface starch, which keeps the pieces separate instead of clumping together in the dish.

“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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes