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Angels on Horseback

Bacon-wrapped oysters served on fried bread with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Angels on Horseback

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into neat square pieces large enough to wrap around an oyster.

  2. Place an oyster on each piece of bacon, sprinkle with herbs, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon.

  3. Roll them up and secure with a skewer.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry until the bacon is cooked.

  2. Fry the bread in a little butter until golden brown.

  3. Place each bacon-wrapped oyster on a piece of fried bread.

  4. Serve very hot, garnished with parsley and lemon wedges.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Wraps the oyster and renders fat that crisps and flavours the surface as it cooks.
Oysters
Provide the soft, briny centre that the bacon wraps around.
Bread
Soaks up juices and fat from the bacon and oyster, giving a crisp, golden base.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich bacon and oyster flavours.

The step that matters

Fry until the bacon is cooked. Bacon must be cooked through and browned enough to crisp, while the oyster inside should only warm; overcooking toughens the oyster and dries the dish.

“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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