Skip to main content
Main

Oysters Au Gratin

A baked oyster and macaroni gratin with Parmesan, butter, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Oysters Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Cook macaroni in boiling water with salt and pepper for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain and return macaroni to the saucepan with gravy; simmer until tender and absorbed.

Make the filling

  1. Chop macaroni, add oysters, Parmesan, butter, cayenne, and enough gravy to moisten.

  2. Heat over fire until cheese melts, then pile in a dish.

Top and brown

  1. Top with Parmesan and bread crumbs, drizzle with clarified butter, and brown in a gentle oven.

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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish, absorbing gravy to hold everything together.
Oysters
Supply the main savoury flavour and a soft, tender texture in the filling.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the filling for richness and saltiness, and browns on top for a crisp finish.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savoury depth, so the macaroni becomes tender and cohesive.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the filling.

The step that matters

Heat over fire until cheese melts. Heating gently just until the cheese melts keeps the oysters tender and the cheese smooth. Overheating can make the cheese grainy or oily and toughen the oysters.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes