Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Stuffed 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 filling
Scald the oysters in their own juice.
Moisten stale bread with the oyster juice.
Beat in 3 eggs and mix with the moistened bread.
Add 1 tablespoon of melted butter to the mixture.
Fill and bake
Fill oyster shells with the mixture.
Sift powdered crackers on top and add a little butter.
Bake until brown at 400°F (200°C).
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,545 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 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
- Eggs
- Bind the bread and oyster mixture so it holds together in the shells.
- Stale bread
- Absorbs the oyster juice and gives the filling body and texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and helps the topping brown in the oven.
- Powdered crackers
- Forms a crisp, browned topping over the filling.
The step that matters
Bake until brown at 400°F (200°C). Baking at high heat sets the egg-bound filling and browns the cracker topping. Underbaking leaves the filling loose and pale, while overbaking can dry out the oysters.
“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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