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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked in butter sauce with lemon and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped 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 the oysters

  1. Open the oysters.

  2. Remove the gills.

  3. Put the oysters in their liquor.

  4. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the liquor into a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and lemon juice.

  3. Let it simmer.

  4. Add the oysters just to set.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter six scallop shells.

  2. Fill the shells with the oyster mixture.

  3. Sift bread crumbs over each shell.

  4. Top each shell with small pieces of butter.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 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
Form the main body of the dish and provide its briny, savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the crumbs brown on top.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust over the oysters when baked.

The step that matters

Add the oysters just to set.. Oysters overcook quickly; once they firm and curl at the edges they turn rubbery, so they should be added to the hot liquor only until just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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