Why it works: Bread and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Plain Oyster Patties
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
Make small round loaves or take small French rolls and hollow out the top.
Make the filling
In a stew pan, combine oysters with their liquor, bread crumbs, and butter.
Season with black pepper and cayenne, then stew for 5-6 minutes.
Stir in the cream and fill the hollowed rolls with the mixture.
Bake and serve
Cover with the cut-off crusts and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes to crisp.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,145 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Oyster + breadtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,544 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,175 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Bread + peppertop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together20,964 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 their briny flavour.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the oyster liquor and thicken the filling into a spreadable mixture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the filling.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and a smoother, richer texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Stewing the filling. Stewing the oysters only briefly keeps them tender; overcooking toughens the proteins and makes them rubbery, while the crumbs need enough heat to absorb the liquor and thicken.
“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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