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Oysters Au Gratin

Oysters au gratin is a baked oyster dish topped with bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oysters Au Gratin

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. Put the oysters in a pan and bring to a boil.

  2. Strain the oysters through a colander.

  3. Chop the celery, mushrooms, and garlic.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the oysters, celery, mushrooms, garlic, red pepper, ginger, ketchup, and Lea & Perrin's sauce.

  2. Fill the oyster shells with the mixture and top with bread crumbs.

  3. Dot with butter and bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the seafood base and briny flavor of the whole dish.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy depth to the filling.
Celery
Adds a crisp, fresh texture and mild vegetal flavor to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the topping brown.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the seafood.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Oysters cook quickly in the oven. Overbaking toughens their proteins and dries them out, so watch for a golden topping and remove the dish promptly.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, celery, mushroom, clove, pepper, ginger, ketchup):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, celery, mushroom, clove, pepper, ginger, ketchup. 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.