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Oysters, Scalloped

A baked oyster dish with a creamy sauce, seasoned with anchovy, cayenne, nutmeg, and topped with fried breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oysters, Scalloped

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the oyster liquor into a saucepan.

  2. Add flour and butter, knead with a small amount of cream, anchovy, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes until reduced.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and chopped parsley.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut the oysters in half and add them to the mixture.

  2. Stir over the heat for 6 to 7 minutes.

  3. Fill scallop shells with the mixture.

  4. Top with fried bread crumbs and place in a baking tin.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 seafood filling and flavour of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the liquor and butter mixture into a body that holds the oysters.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping form a smooth sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the creamy filling.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks over heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the mixture boils hard. Keeping the heat gentle while stirring gives a smooth, lightly set sauce rather than a grainy one.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, flour, butter, cream, anchovy, nutmeg, egg. 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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