Why it works: Bread and oyster 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 ↓
Mock, Duck
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Season both sides of the beefsteak with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Prepare bread or crackers with or without oysters for stuffing.
Stuff and roast
Lay the stuffing on the meat and sew it up.
Roast the stuffed beefsteak in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about an hour.
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.
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Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,545 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,663 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beefsteak
- Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing while it roasts.
- Bread or crackers
- Forms the bulk of the stuffing, absorbing juices and adding soft texture inside the meat.
- Oysters
- Adds a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing when used.
“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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