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Broiled Oysters

Broiled oysters served on toast with butter sauce, lemon wedges, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters thoroughly.

Cook the oysters

  1. Place the oysters on a hot griddle; cook until the edges curl.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add salt, cayenne, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Add the cooked oysters to the sauce and cook for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Serve the oysters on toast, garnished with lemon wedges and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main ingredient, cooked briefly until their edges curl and they firm up.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness and a smooth, savory coating to the oysters.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters on the hot griddle. Oysters overcook quickly and turn rubbery. Cooking only until the edges curl keeps them tender, since they cook a little more when added to the hot sauce.

“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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