Name: Creamed Oysters in Peppers
Ingredients: 1 quart oysters; ½ cup oyster liquor; 1 cup cream; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 4 red or green peppers; buttered cracker crumbs

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Oysters in Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters and sauce

Heat the oysters in a pot until boiling, then drain.
In a saucepan, combine oyster liquor, cream, flour, butter, salt, and pepper to make a sauce.
Add the oysters to the sauce and mix well.

Fill and bake

Cut around the stems of the peppers, removing the stems and seeds.
Fill the pepper cases with the oyster mixture.
Sprinkle with buttered cracker crumbs and bake until browned.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,886 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 filling, with their briny flavor carried through the sauce.
Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the cream and oyster liquor into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor to the sauce and helps the cracker crumbs brown.
Peppers: Serve as edible cases that hold the filling and soften as they bake.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce before filling. Flour must be fully mixed in and cooked through in the warm cream and liquor, or the sauce stays pasty or runny. A thick sauce keeps the filling from spilling out of the peppers and bubbling away during baking.

“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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Creamed Oysters in Peppers