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Oyster Rolls or Loaves

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Rolls or Loaves

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut off the tops of the rolls and remove most of the crumb.

  2. Open the oysters, remove gills, and simmer the oyster liquor with the gills and an equal amount of cream or white wine.

  3. Strain the mixture and thicken it with butter and flour.

  4. Stir in the oysters, a little nutmeg, salt, and half of the crumb cut into pieces.

  5. Fill the rolls with the mixture and replace the tops.

  6. Set the rolls over a stove or chafing dish, adding more gravy, cream, or wine as needed.

  7. When thoroughly hot and well mixed, serve with thick melted butter poured over.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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