Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Little Pigs in Blankets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the gills from the oysters.
Wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick.
Coat and fry
Roll the wrapped oysters in beaten egg, then in cracker dust.
Fry quickly in hot oil until golden brown.
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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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
- Oysters
- Provide the central filling, cooking gently in their own juices within the bacon.
- Thinly sliced bacon
- Adds fat and salty flavour, and browns and crisps as it fries.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a glue so the cracker dust adheres to the wrapped oysters.
- Cracker dust
- Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
The step that matters
Fry quickly in hot oil. Hot oil browns and crisps the coating fast, before the oyster overcooks and turns rubbery. Slow frying lets the coating absorb oil and become greasy.
“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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