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Scalloped Oysters

A baked oyster dish topped with bread crumbs, butter, and cream.

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

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. Do not drain the liquor from the oysters; fish them out as needed.

  2. Use stale bread, crumbled coarsely to avoid a clammy texture.

Assemble

  1. Cover the bottom of a well-buttered baking dish with a layer of dry bread crumbs.

  2. Dust with salt and pepper, and dot with small pieces of butter.

  3. Moisten the crumbs with cream using a spoon.

  4. Layer oysters and bread crumbs alternately until the dish is filled, finishing with butter and cream on top.

Bake and brown

  1. Cover with a plate to retain flavor and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Remove the plate and brown for an additional 2-3 minutes on the upper shelf.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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
Provide the main flavor and tender filling, with their liquor adding moisture and brininess.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the layers body so the dish holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown while keeping the crumbs from drying out.
Cream
Moistens the crumbs and adds richness to the custardy layers as they bake.

The step that matters

Cover with a plate while baking. The cover traps steam so the oysters cook gently and stay moist. Removing it at the end lets the surface brown, so timing matters for both texture and color.

“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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