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Oyster Toast

Oyster toast is a dish of oysters mixed with egg yolk and cream, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the oysters finely and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Whisk the egg mixture into the simmering oysters until set.

  2. Pour the oyster mixture over slices of buttered toast and serve.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the topping.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and help it set into a creamy custard when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the set egg yolks into a smooth texture.
Buttered toast
Gives a crisp, fatty base that holds the warm oyster mixture.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg mixture into the simmering oysters until set. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if the heat is too high or they are added too fast. Adding them gradually while whisking, and stopping once the mixture thickens, keeps it smooth and creamy.

“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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