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Princess Oysters

Oysters served on toasted bread with whipped cream, egg whites, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Princess Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Chill 1 pint of thick whipped cream on ice.

  2. Toast thin slices of bread, butter them well, and place 4 large oysters on each slice.

Top and bake

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and bits of butter.

  2. Return to a 400°F (200°C) oven until oysters are curled and hot.

  3. Beat egg whites until stiff, season with a little salt and paprika, and mound on top of the oysters.

  4. Make a depression in the center of each egg mound and return to the oven to brown slightly.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, allowing the host to add a large spoonful of whipped cream to each egg mound.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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 savoury filling that cooks until curled and hot.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff, they form a light mound that sets and browns in the oven.
Whipped cream
Adds cool richness that contrasts with the hot egg topping when served.
Bread
Toasted and buttered, it forms a crisp base that holds the oysters.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the toast and seasons the oysters as they heat.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks; underbeaten whites collapse and spread instead of forming a mound that holds its shape and browns.

“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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