Skip to main content
Main

Steak and Oystees

A baked dish of steak served over oysters with onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Oyster and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Steak and Oystees

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In an oval dish, place the cleaned oysters and cover them with their liquor.

  3. Lay the steak on top of the oysters.

  4. Cover the steak with the sliced onions.

Bake and serve

  1. Invert another dish over the steak and seal the edges with a paste.

  2. Bake in the oven for 1 hour.

  3. Invert the dishes for 5 minutes, then remove the top dish and serve.

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 + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, gentle cooking.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour that infuses the steak and liquor below.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated sea flavour to the dish as it cooks.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften under the sealed dish.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges with paste. A tight seal traps steam inside the dishes, so the steak and oysters cook gently in their own moisture. Gaps let steam escape, which can dry the meat and weaken the flavour.

“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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes