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Pigs in Blankets

Oysters wrapped in bacon, broiled and served on toast with celery and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pigs in Blankets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the oysters.

  2. Take a strip of bacon and lay it flat on your hand.

  3. Place an oyster at the end of the bacon strip and roll it up tightly.

  4. Secure the bacon with a toothpick.

Season and cook

  1. Sprinkle the wrapped oysters with pepper.

  2. Dip the wrapped oysters in melted butter.

  3. Broil until cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve on hot toast with celery and garnish with lemon.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Wraps the oysters, and its fat renders and crisps as it broils, adding savory flavor and browning.
Oysters
Provide the main filling, cooking through quickly under the broiler while staying tender.
Melted butter
Carries fat over the wrapped oysters, promoting browning and adding richness.

The step that matters

Broil until cooked. Oysters overcook quickly and turn rubbery under high heat, while the bacon needs enough heat to crisp. Watching closely keeps both tender and crisp.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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