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Escaloped Oysters

Oysters baked with cream, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Escaloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter a pudding dish and cover the bottom with a layer of bread crumbs.

Layer and bake

  1. Wet the crumbs with ½ cup of cream or milk, adding salt, pepper, and bits of butter.

  2. Add 1 quart of oysters and their liquor, seasoning with more salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Cover thickly with more bread crumbs and add additional pieces of butter on top.

  4. Cover the dish and bake for 30 to 45 minutes until the juice bubbles up.

  5. Remove the cover and brown the top for a few minutes.

  6. Serve in the dish it was baked in.

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

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

  3. Butter + oystertop 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. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Oysters
Form the main body of the dish and release juices that moisten the crumbs as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the cream and oyster liquor and form a tender crust that browns on top.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, combining with the oyster liquor to create a sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering and baking until the juice bubbles up. The covered bake traps steam so the oysters cook gently and the liquid bubbles through the crumbs. Removing the cover too early leaves the oysters dry, while too little baking leaves the dish watery.

“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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