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Scolloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked in shells with butter, bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scolloped Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters through a sieve.

  2. Wash the oysters and cut off the hard parts.

Fill the shells

  1. Grease the bottoms of large scallop or clam shells with butter.

  2. Sprinkle the bottoms with bread crumbs.

  3. Lay the oysters in the shells, seasoning with cayenne pepper and grated nutmeg.

  4. Place a small bit of butter on each oyster.

  5. Thicken the reserved liquor with bread crumbs.

  6. Pour the thickened liquor into the shells until full.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the oysters on a gridiron over coals to slightly cook the bottoms.

  2. Transfer the shells to a tin oven before the fire to brown.

  3. Turn the shells for even cooking.

  4. Serve hot in the shells on a large dish.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  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 + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main body and flavor of the dish, cooking gently in their shells.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the reserved oyster liquor and form a light crust that helps browning.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and keeping the oysters moist.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters on a gridiron over coals to slightly cook the bottoms.. Oysters overcook quickly and turn tough and rubbery under strong heat. Brief exposure just firms the bottoms, so the browning step finishes them gently without drying them out.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, bread, pepper. 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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