Skip to main content
Main

Huitres a LA Russe

Oysters served on toasted bread croûtons with caviar, lemon juice, mignonette pepper, and optional cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Spread toasted croûtons of bread with caviar.

  2. Add a few drops of lemon juice on top.

  3. Place an oyster on each croûton.

  4. Sprinkle with mignonette pepper and a small quantity of cayenne if desired.

  5. Serve cold.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  2. Caviar + oystertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Bread + oystertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,544 recipes

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

  4. Bread + caviartop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Bread + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,964 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

Caviar
Adds salty, briny richness that contrasts with the oyster's mild sweetness.
Oysters
Provide the main delicate, briny flavour and soft texture of the dish.
Toasted bread croûtons
Give a crisp, neutral base that holds the toppings and adds contrasting crunch.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the oyster and balances the salty caviar.

“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

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of White BreadIllustrationWhite Bread80 recipesIllustration of Bread OmeletteIllustrationBread Omelette60 recipes