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Oysters a LA Mode

Oysters a la Mode is a dish of oysters, sweetbread, bacon, and seasonings served on skewers with lemon and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oysters a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sweetbread in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cut the sweetbread into pieces the size of an oyster.

  3. Mix the sweetbread, oysters, and bacon in a bowl.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, parsley, shallot, thyme, and bread crumbs.

Skewer and serve

  1. Place the sweetbread, oysters, and bacon alternately on small skewers.

  2. Serve on a hot dish, squeezing lemon juice over them.

  3. Pour brown gravy over the skewers 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's sweetbread
Provides a tender, rich meat that contrasts with the briny oysters.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the mixture.
Oysters
Supply the main briny, delicate seafood flavor of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and fat, helping the coating hold together and add texture.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich bacon, sweetbread and gravy.

“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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