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Sweet Entremets

A chilled appetizer of oysters or clams served on finely chopped ice with a lemon wedge.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Oyster and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,942 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Entremets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place finely chopped ice on each soup plate.

  2. Add a small fancy napkin on top of the ice.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange oysters or clams nicely on each plate.

  2. Add a piece of lemon on each plate.

  3. Serve immediately after all guests are seated.

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 + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,942 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

Oysters or clams
Provide the main seafood, served raw and chilled as the dish itself.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the shellfish.

The step that matters

Serve immediately after all guests are seated. Raw shellfish warms up and its texture softens quickly, and the ice keeps it cold only for a limited time. Serving promptly keeps it fresh and firm.

“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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