Skip to main content
Main

Escaloped Oysters

A baked oyster dish layered with crackers, butter, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Escaloped Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crush the crackers.

  2. Roll the crushed crackers.

Layer the dish

  1. Layer some crushed crackers in a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Wet the crackers with a mixture of warmed oyster liquor and milk.

  3. Add a layer of oysters.

  4. Sprinkle the oysters with salt and pepper.

  5. Place small bits of butter on top.

  6. Repeat the layering until the dish is full.

  7. Finish with a thicker layer of crumbs.

  8. Beat the egg into the milk.

  9. Pour the mixture over the top layer of crumbs.

  10. Dot the top with pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Cover the dish.

  2. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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 filling and provide the dish's briny, savory flavor.
Friable crackers
Absorb the liquid and form the crumb layers that hold the dish together.
Egg
Binds the milk mixture so it sets into a custard-like texture when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and, with the egg, forms a custard that softens the crumbs.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the crumbs taste rich.

The step that matters

Cover the dish.. Covering traps steam so the oysters cook gently and the crumbs soften before the top browns, keeping the oysters from drying out.

“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

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes