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Oysters, Scalloped

Scalloped oysters baked with white sauce, lemon, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oysters, Scalloped

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the oysters and sauce

  1. Blanch the oysters in their own liquor, remove the gills, and cut them in halves.

  2. Strain the liquor into the white sauce, boil until reduced, then add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Brush 4 or 5 small scallop shells with nearly cold clarified butter and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Distribute the oysters equally, add the prepared sauce, and cover lightly with bread crumbs.

  3. Place 2 or 5 small pieces of butter on top of each shell.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned and 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 filling and a briny, savory flavor in the dish.
White sauce
Binds the oysters into a moist, creamy filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top crust brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the oyster liquor into the sauce. Oyster liquor is salty and thin. Boiling it down concentrates its flavor and thickens the sauce, so it does not make the filling watery. Season only after reducing, since the liquor's salt concentrates as it boils.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sauce, bread, butter, pepper. 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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