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Oysters for Lunch

Oysters wrapped in bacon and baked on toast, served with a pickled sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Oysters for Lunch

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 the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters in their own liquor and wipe them dry.

  2. Strain the liquor and mix it with pepper, mace, salt, cloves, and vinegar.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Drain the oysters.

Wrap and bake

  1. Wrap each oyster with bacon and secure with a skewer.

  2. Place the wrapped oysters on toast.

  3. Cook the oysters in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a short time.

Make the pickled oysters

  1. For pickled oysters, simmer the oysters in their juice until the edges curl.

  2. Strain the juice and let it settle.

  3. Pour off a quart of the juice.

  4. Add white wine or vinegar, mace, cloves, and black pepper to the clear juice.

  5. Heat the mixture without boiling.

  6. Pour the mixture over the oysters in a jar.

  7. Let the pickled oysters sit for two days before serving.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Clove + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main body of the dish, cooking gently to stay tender and juicy.
Bacon
Wraps each oyster, rendering fat and browning to add savory flavor and crispness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickled oysters.
White wine
Adds acidity and mild fruity flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer the oysters until the edges curl. Oysters overcooked past the point of curling become firm, shrink, and turn rubbery, so they should be heated only until the edges just curl.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, vinegar, pepper, clove, white wine):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, vinegar, pepper, clove, white wine. 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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