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Beefsteak and Oysters

A dish of oysters served on a broiled beefsteak.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Oysters

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. Broil the beefsteak as usual.

  2. Place the oysters in a shallow dish with butter, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover tightly and place in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. When the oysters crack open, turn them over the steak 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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Release their own liquor and steam inside the covered dish, which opens the shells and keeps the meat moist.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and enriches the oysters as they cook.
Beefsteak
Serves as the broiled base that the cooked oysters are turned over and served on.

The step that matters

Cover the oysters tightly in the oven. The sealed dish traps steam from the oysters' own liquor, which heats the shells until they crack open. A loose cover lets the steam escape, so the oysters cook unevenly and may stay closed.

“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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