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To Scallop Oystees

A baked oyster casserole with eggs, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

To Scallop Oystees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse and drain the oysters.

  2. Chop the hard-boiled eggs very fine.

Layer and bake

  1. Mix the eggs with the crumbled loaf, pepper, and salt.

  2. In a pie dish, layer some of the mixture at the bottom.

  3. Add a layer of oysters, a few bits of butter, and cover with more mixture.

  4. Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of breadcrumbs on top.

  5. Bake for 45 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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 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 flavour and tender, briny body of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the crumb mixture, binding it together.
Bread loaf
Forms the crumb layers that soak up moisture and hold the dish together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Layering the mixture and oysters. Keeping the layers even and covering the oysters with crumb stops them drying out or toughening in the oven, so the dish stays moist and tender throughout.

“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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