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Oysters Scalloped

Scalloped oysters baked with bread crumbs, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter scallop shells.

  3. Sprinkle scallop shells with bread crumbs and a pinch of salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Using a spoon, take the oysters from the tin, leaving some liquor, and fill the shells.

  2. Dust the oysters with cayenne pepper.

  3. Cover the oysters with a thick layer of bread crumbs.

  4. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  5. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown.

  6. Brown the tops under a broiler or over a flame.

Serve

  1. Serve hot in the shells with lemon wedges and brown bread with butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main filling, providing the dish's savoury, briny flavour.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping and absorb moisture from the oysters.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the topping brown richly.

The step that matters

Browning the tops under a broiler or over a flame. Bread crumbs and butter brown quickly through the Maillard reaction at high heat, so the topping can scorch if left unattended. Watch closely and stop once golden.

“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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