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Eggs with Oysters

A simple dish of scrambled eggs mixed with finely chopped oysters, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eggs with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and cook them in their own juice.

  2. Strain the juice and chop the oysters very finely.

Make the eggs

  1. Scramble the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Stir the chopped oysters into the scrambled eggs.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

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

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

  2. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + nutmegtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,434 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set into soft curds that bind the dish and give it a creamy body.
Oysters
Provide the main briny flavour and aroma of the dish.

The step that matters

Scramble the eggs gently. Egg proteins set as they heat. Cooking too hot or too long squeezes out moisture and leaves the curds dry and rubbery, so remove them while still soft and moist.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, 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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