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Oyster Rarebit

A savory dish of melted butter, cheese, oysters, egg yolks, and oyster liquor served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Oyster Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Parboil the oysters, then drain and keep them hot.

Make the rarebit

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix in the oyster liquor and oysters.

  2. Stir the mixture into the melted cheese.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on bread toasted on one side.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

Cheese
Melts into a creamy base that gives the rarebit its body and flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cheese mixture and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and tender bites to the sauce.
Oyster liquor
Adds concentrated briny flavour and moisture to the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the cheese melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture into the melted cheese. Egg yolks scramble if the cheese is too hot or added too fast. Adding the egg mixture gradually while stirring keeps it smooth and creamy as it thickens.

“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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