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Oysters with Bacon

Oysters wrapped in bacon served on fried bread, garnished with parsley and lemon.

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 ↓

Oysters with Bacon

12 pieces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stamp out 12 rounds of bread, 2 inches in diameter, and fry until golden brown.

  2. Cut the bacon into squares and place an oyster on each.

  3. Dust lightly with cayenne.

  4. Fold the bacon over the oyster.

  5. Skewer firmly.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in butter until the bacon is cooked.

  2. Remove the skewer.

  3. Place an oyster on each round of fried bread.

  4. Serve very hot, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Wraps the oyster and renders fat that crisps the outside while it cooks.
Oysters
Provide the soft, briny centre that the bacon wraps around.
Bread
Forms a crisp golden base that holds the cooked oyster.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bacon and bread brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until the bacon is cooked. Oysters cook quickly and can turn tough and rubbery if overheated, while the bacon needs enough time to crisp. Keep the heat moderate and watch closely so the bacon finishes just as the oyster firms slightly.

“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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