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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters are baked oysters topped with butter, salt, pepper, cracker crumbs, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and pick over the oysters.

  2. Butter a baking dish and place a layer of oysters in it.

Assemble

  1. Sprinkle the oysters with coarse sea salt, pepper, and bits of butter.

  2. Add a layer of cracker crumbs on top.

  3. If desired, add 3 tablespoons of sherry before the final layer of crumbs.

  4. Cover the top with buttered crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C) or until the edges are curled.

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

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

  2. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Oyster + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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 release their liquor as they cook, moistening the layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the buttered crumbs brown on top.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the oyster liquor and set into a soft, layered crumb texture.
Sherry
Adds a light, aromatic sweetness and acidity to the oysters, if used.

The step that matters

Baking until the edges curl. Baking too briefly leaves the oysters underdone and the liquor thin, while overbaking dries the crumbs and toughens the oysters. The curled edges signal the oysters are cooked and the crumbs have set.

“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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