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Oysters, Scalloped

A baked oyster dish with a buttery sauce, anchovy, cayenne, nutmeg, egg yolks, parsley, lemon juice, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oysters, Scalloped

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters and remove the gills, then cut each oyster in half.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk in the flour, oyster liquor, and milk or cream until smooth.

  3. Add anchovy, cayenne, and nutmeg to the sauce.

  4. Stir over low heat until the sauce is smooth and thick.

  5. Let the sauce cool for a minute.

  6. Stir in the egg yolks, parsley, lemon juice, and oysters.

  7. Stir the mixture over gentle heat for 4–5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mixture into the oyster shells.

  2. Cover the shells thickly with bread crumbs.

  3. Moisten the crumbs with clarified butter.

  4. Place the shells in a Dutch oven.

  5. Cook until the tops are lightly browned.

  6. Serve very hot.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provide the main substance and briny flavour of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, stable sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a richer, creamier body.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and body to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the sauce. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble into lumps. Cool the sauce briefly and keep the heat gentle so it stays smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, flour, milk, anchovy, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, milk, anchovy, nutmeg, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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