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Scalloped Oysters a LA Reine

Scalloped oysters à la reine are oysters simmered in rich white sauce, topped with fried breadcrumbs and clarified butter, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped Oysters a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove gills from the oysters and rinse them in their own strained liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the oysters with the rich white sauce.

  2. If needed, thicken the sauce with flour mixed with butter or arrow-root.

  3. Simmer the oysters in the sauce for 3 to 4 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the oysters back into their shells.

  2. Cover the oysters with fried bread crumbs or a layer of fine crumbs.

  3. Drizzle clarified butter over the top and brown them using a salamander.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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 flavour and tender, briny body of the dish.
Rich white sauce
Binds the oysters together and keeps them moist in the shells.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the oysters rather than running off.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft filling.
Clarified butter
Carries heat evenly and helps the crumb topping brown richly.

The step that matters

Simmering the oysters in the sauce. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should simmer only briefly, just until their edges curl and they are heated through. Longer cooking makes them rubbery and can cause the sauce to break or thin.

“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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