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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked with cracker crumbs, butter, pepper, sea salt, oyster liquor, heavy cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease a bake dish and cover the bottom with oysters.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the oysters with fine cracker crumbs, then sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, and bits of butter.

  2. Repeat the layering with more oysters and crumbs until all are used, finishing with a layer of crumbs well buttered.

  3. Pour a few spoonfuls of oyster liquor over each layer of oysters and the same amount of cream over the top layer of crumbs.

  4. Cover the dish and bake until hot throughout, then uncover and brown lightly.

  5. Serve with sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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 and release savory juices as they heat.
Fine cracker crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the layers a soft, bound structure.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown lightly in the oven.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness to the top layer as it bakes.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated briny flavor to each layer.

The step that matters

Covering, then uncovering to brown. Baking covered until hot throughout keeps the oysters from drying out and overcooking, while uncovering at the end lets the crumbs and butter brown lightly.

“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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