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Oyster Stuffing

Oyster stuffing is a dish of oysters filled with a mixture of cracker crumbs, onion, butter, pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Stuffing

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Chop the oysters finely and mix them with the other ingredients.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the fish.

  3. Fasten the opening with a skewer or needle and thread.

Season and bake

  1. Rub the fish with salt inside and out.

  2. Cover it with soft butter.

  3. Dredge with flour.

  4. Place narrow strips of fat salt pork on top of the fish.

  5. Pour boiling water into the pan to cover the bottom.

  6. Bake the fish in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C).

  7. Baste every ten minutes with the pan gravy and a little butter.

  8. Dredge lightly with salt, pepper, and flour each time.

Serve

  1. Remove the skewer or strings.

  2. Place the fish on a serving dish.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 moisture that fill the stuffing.
Powdered cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and bind the stuffing so it holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside of the fish brown as it bakes.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat over the fish, keeping it moist and adding savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven and baste regularly. Basting with pan juices and butter every ten minutes keeps the surface from drying out and builds browned, flavourful gravy. Too little liquid or heat can dry the fish before it cooks through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, pepper, parsley. 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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