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Scalloped Otstebs

A baked oyster dish layered with crumbed bread, eggs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Otstebs

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. Chop the hard-boiled eggs very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped eggs with the bread crumbs and season with cayenne and salt.

  3. Rinse the oysters in cold water.

Assemble

  1. Cover the bottom of a deep pie dish with the egg and crumb mixture.

  2. Layer the oysters on top, adding small pieces of butter between layers.

  3. Continue layering until all oysters are used, reserving some crumbs for the top.

  4. If desired, add a little nutmeg or mace.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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
Form the main filling and provide the dish's briny, savoury flavour as they cook.
Baker's loaf, crumbed
Forms the layered crumb base and topping that soak up juices and set the dish's texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the crumb mixture, helping bind it together.
Butter
Adds fat between layers, encouraging moisture and browning in the baked top.

The step that matters

Layering the oysters and crumbs. Keeping crumbs between and above the oysters helps prevent the shellfish from drying out or overcooking while the dish bakes, and the butter pieces add fat for flavour and browning.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

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