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Stuffed Oysters

A baked oyster dish filled with a buttered breadcrumb and parsley mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Drain the oysters and chop them finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped oysters with fresh bread crumbs, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, onion, salt, pepper, tomatoes, and hot butter.

Stuff and bake

  1. Spoon the mixture into the oyster shells.

  2. Dust each shell with dry bread crumbs and add a small piece of butter on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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 filling and the savory seafood flavor of the dish.
Fresh bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling a soft, moist body that holds the oysters together.
Dry bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the topping brown.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and tangy, umami flavor to the filling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, bread, butter, onion, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, butter, onion, tomato, sauce. 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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