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Scalloped Oysters

Baked oysters in a creamy sauce with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters, scald them in their own liquor, and strain the liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and mix over heat.

  2. Stir in the strained oyster liquor and bring to a boil.

  3. Add pepper, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, and mix well.

  4. Stir in the cream and heat until hot.

  5. Add the oysters, cut in halves.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter two scallop shells and sprinkle with bread-crumbs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the shells and top with more bread-crumbs soaked in butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and slightly golden.

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

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

  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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender texture that give the dish its character.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor and cream into a smooth, binding sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce into a creamy texture.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns during baking.

The step that matters

Heating the sauce after adding the flour and liquor. Flour must be cooked with the butter and brought to a boil in the liquor so it thickens fully and loses its raw starchy taste. Adding the cream and oysters too early or overheating can curdle the cream or toughen the oysters.

“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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