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Escaloped Oysters

Oysters baked with breadcrumbs, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a dish (an earthen pie plate works best).

Assemble

  1. Cover the bottom with a layer of fine bread crumbs.

  2. Add a layer of oysters and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Repeat the layers of crumbs and oysters until you have three layers.

  4. Finish with a layer of crumbs on top.

  5. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  6. Arrange the small oblong pieces of buttered bread around the edge.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main ingredient; they release their liquid as they bake, moistening the crumb layers.
Very fine bread crumbs
Absorb the oyster juices and give the layers structure and body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Bread
Buttered pieces around the edge toast and brown, adding crisp contrast.

The step that matters

Bake for 30 minutes. Oysters firm up and turn tough when overcooked, so the bake time matters. The crumbs and butter need enough heat to set and brown the top.

“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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