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Oysters, Scalloped

Oysters, Scalloped is a baked oyster dish with bread, butter, salt, pepper, and oyster liquor.

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

Oysters, Scalloped

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. Wash the oysters thoroughly.

  2. Place each large oyster in its shell.

  3. Add crumbled bread, salt, pepper, and butter to each shell.

  4. Pour a little oyster liquor into each shell.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked through.

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

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

  3. Oyster + breadtop 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. Pepper + buttertop 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

Large oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender, briny meat that cooks in its shell.
Bread roll
Absorbs the liquor and butter, adding body and a soft, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the topping brown lightly in the oven.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated sea flavor so the bread stays soft and the dish tastes of the sea.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Oyster meat is delicate and turns firm and rubbery when overheated, so it should be removed as soon as it is just cooked through. Watching the shells and the color of the meat helps prevent overcooking.

“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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