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Scalloped Oysters a LA Reine

Scalloped oysters topped with white sauce, bread crumbs, and clarified butter, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove gills from oysters and rinse them in their own strained liquor.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the oysters with the white sauce and thicken with flour and butter or arrow-root if needed.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 3–4 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the oysters into their shells and cover with browned, dried bread crumbs.

  2. Drizzle clarified butter over the crumbs and brown them using a salamander.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main body and briny flavour of the dish.
White sauce
Binds the oysters into a creamy, moist filling.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it holds together rather than running.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned.
Clarified butter
Carries heat to the crumbs and helps them brown evenly.

The step that matters

Browning the crumbs under the salamander. Crumbs need to be dry and well coated in butter so they toast to gold rather than burn or stay pale. Watch closely, since the oysters beneath can overcook from the intense heat.

“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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