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Angels on Horseback

Angels on Horseback are oysters wrapped in bacon and served on fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Angels on Horseback

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Remove gills from oysters.

  2. Trim the bacon, cutting each piece to wrap around an oyster.

  3. Season bacon with Krona pepper, shallot, and parsley.

Wrap and cook

  1. Place an oyster on each bacon piece, add a few drops of lemon juice, and roll tightly.

  2. Secure with a large pin.

  3. Fry in a pan or bake at 400°F (200°C) until bacon is crisp, about 5-7 minutes.

  4. Remove the pin and serve on the croutons.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the central savoury filling that is wrapped and cooked inside the bacon.
Bacon
Wraps the oysters and renders fat as it crisps, browning and flavouring the outside.
Fried bread croutes
Hold the cooked rolls and soak up the bacon fat and juices as a base.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic onion flavour to the bacon wrap.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the rich bacon and oysters.

The step that matters

Fry or bake until the bacon is crisp. Bacon must render and crisp fully so its fat cooks off and it browns, while the oyster inside is only heated through. Overcooking toughens the oyster and dries the roll, while undercooking leaves the bacon fatty and limp.

“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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