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Scalloped Oysters Au Supreme

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters Au Supreme

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.

  1. Drain the oysters and reserve the liquor for another dish.

  2. Butter a pudding dish and cover the bottom with oysters.

  3. Add a layer of fine cracker crumbs over the oysters.

  4. Sprinkle the crumbs with bits of butter, minced parsley, celery salt, capers, and a dust of paprika.

  5. Moisten with cream or heated milk thickened slightly with white roux and allowed to cool.

  6. Add another layer of oysters, more seasoned crumbs, and cream until the dish is full.

  7. Top with crumbs thickly dotted with butter.

  8. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) until it bubbles, then uncover and brown lightly for about 30 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. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, parsley, capers, cream):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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

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