Skip to main content
Main

Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked oysters topped with breadcrumbs and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Oyster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,233 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scalloped 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 oysters

  1. Open the oysters and remove the gills.

  2. Strain the oyster liquor into a basin.

Assemble

  1. Add the white sauce, oysters, salt, and pepper to the liquor.

  2. Put the mixture back into the oyster shells.

Bake

  1. Cover with breadcrumbs and bake for 5 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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 + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and the tender, briny filling of the dish.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that binds the filling together.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, lightly browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Cover with breadcrumbs and bake. Baking only briefly at high heat is needed to heat the oysters through and brown the topping. Overbaking toughens the oysters and dries the white sauce, so watch the time closely.

“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