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Broiled Stuffed Oysters

A dish of oysters filled with a paste of egg yolks, salt pork, parsley, and breadcrumbs, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Stuffed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grate the yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Mix the grated yolks with minced salt pork, black pepper, chopped parsley, and a raw egg yolk to form a paste.

  3. Carefully split the oysters open with a penknife, making a small opening.

Stuff and coat

  1. Stuff the oysters with the mixture.

  2. Dip the stuffed oysters in fine breadcrumbs, then in melted butter, and again in breadcrumbs.

Broil

  1. Broil the oysters over a clear fire until golden.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Oyster + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,255 recipes

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

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 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 body of the dish, with their briny flavour carried inside the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Make the filling rich and crumbly, giving it body and a soft texture.
Raw egg yolk
Binds the grated yolks and salt pork into a cohesive paste that holds its shape.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the filling, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Fine breadcrumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns under the broiler.
Melted butter
Carries the breadcrumbs and encourages golden browning on the crust.

The step that matters

Splitting the oysters without tearing them. Opening the shell only a small amount keeps the oyster intact and holds the filling inside. A torn or over-opened oyster lets the filling leak and dry out under the heat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, egg, pork, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, pork, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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