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Scalloped Oysters

A baked oyster dish topped with buttered breadcrumbs and oyster juice.

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 ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Rinse the oysters in cold water and remove any shell pieces.

  2. Strain the oyster juice through a cloth.

  3. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs with melted butter and season with salt and cayenne.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the ingredients in a baking dish: start with bread crumbs, then oysters, more bread crumbs, and repeat, finishing with a top layer of bread crumbs.

  2. Pour the oyster juice over the layers.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

  4. If using shells, cut oysters into small pieces and use 4 cups of buttered crumbs, baking for only 15 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. 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

Oysters
Provide the main filling and their briny flavor as they cook in the layers.
Bread crumbs
Form the layered body of the dish and soak up butter and juice as they bake.
Butter
Coats the crumbs, adding richness and helping them brown in the oven.
Oyster juice
Moistens the layers and carries oyster flavor through the crumbs as they bake.

The step that matters

Pour the oyster juice over the layers. The juice must be strained so grit and shell fragments stay out, and it needs to reach the crumbs so they stay moist while the dish bakes.

“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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