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Angels on Horseback

Bacon-wrapped oysters served on fried bread, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Angels on Horseback

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wrap each oyster in a piece of bacon and fasten with skewers.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the skewered oysters until cooked.

  2. Place each broiled oyster on a round of fried bread.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

  4. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
The main ingredient, providing the dish's central flavor and tender texture when briefly cooked.
Bacon
Renders fat and browns as it cooks, adding savory flavor and crispness around the oysters.
Fried bread
Forms a crisp base that soaks up juices from the oysters and bacon.

The step that matters

Broil until just cooked. Oysters turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, so they need only enough heat to set. The bacon must also cook through and crisp, so both should be watched together under the broiler.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread. 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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