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Grilled Oysters

Grilled oysters served on buttered toast with a sauce of butter, beef extract, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Grilled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over, rinse, and drain the oysters.

  2. Prepare the buttered toast, cut each slice in half diagonally, and keep hot.

Cook and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over low heat until it begins to change color.

  2. Add the oysters and shake until they plump and ruffle.

  3. Quickly remove the oysters and arrange them on the hot toast.

  4. To the liquid in the pan, add the beef extract.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, add the strained oyster liquor and bring to a boil.

  6. Pour the sauce over the oysters and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Oyster + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main protein that plumps and ruffles briefly in the hot butter, staying tender when cooked quickly.
Butter
Cooks in the pan to form the base of the sauce and adds rich, nutty flavor as it browns slightly.
Beef extract
Adds concentrated savory depth to the butter and pan liquid, forming the sauce.
Oyster liquor
Thins the sauce with extra briny oyster flavor when it is too thick.

The step that matters

Removing the oysters quickly. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked. Once they plump and their edges ruffle, they are nearly done, so removing them promptly keeps them tender while the sauce is finished separately.

“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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