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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked oysters topped with a butter, flour, milk sauce, Worcestershire, mustard, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened.

  5. Add Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer oysters in a baking dish, pour sauce over them.

  2. Top with breadcrumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 seafood flavor and tender body that the sauce surrounds.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top during baking.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk sauce. Flour must be cooked briefly in butter and milk added gradually while stirring, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens smoothly before it goes over the oysters.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, flour, milk, sauce, 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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