Skip to main content
Main

Oysters, Scalloped, with Mushrooms

Scalloped oysters with mushrooms baked in butter and breadcrumbs.

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

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 ↓

Oysters, Scalloped, with Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters in their own liquor and place them in a lined saucepan.

  2. Strain the liquor over the oysters and heat slowly to boiling point without boiling.

  3. Remove the oysters and take out their gills.

Make the mushroom filling

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir in the minced mushrooms over gentle heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the oysters and their liquor to the mushrooms and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter scallop shells and fill them with the oyster and mushroom mixture.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs, sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt, and dot with small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 15 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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main seafood body and briny flavour of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy depth and moisture to the filling as they soften over gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling and crumbs brown lightly in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft filling.

The step that matters

Heat the oysters slowly without boiling. Boiling toughens oyster meat and makes it rubbery, so the liquor should be heated gently until just at the edge of boiling point.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes