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Broiled Oysters, New York Style

Broiled oysters seasoned with salt and cayenne, served with a bechamel-based liquor and garnished with toasted bread and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Oysters, New York Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Drain and trim the oysters.

  2. Season the oysters with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. In a stew pan, combine the oysters with their liquor and butter, then warm the oysters in the stew pan.

  4. Remove the oysters from the pan and let them drain.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Grill the oysters on both sides until lightly browned, being careful not to overcook them.

  2. Thicken the liquor with a little bechamel sauce.

  3. Season the thickened liquor with cayenne and grated nutmeg.

Plate and serve

  1. Plate the oysters and pour the thickened liquor around them.

  2. Garnish with sippets of fried or toasted bread and sprigs of parsley, then serve.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Main ingredient; grilling sets their edges and firms the flesh while the centre stays tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while the oysters warm in their liquor.
Bechamel sauce
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth, coating sauce.
Grated nutmeg
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the thickened liquor.

The step that matters

Grilling the oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overcooked, so they should be browned only until lightly coloured, with the flesh still tender and juicy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, butter, sauce, bread, parsley. 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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