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Scalloped Oysters

Scalloped oysters baked with oyster crackers, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble

  1. Drain the oysters and sprinkle a little crushed cracker in the bottom of a small deep dish.

  2. Layer the oysters on top, then sprinkle with salt, pepper, and small pieces of butter.

  3. Add another layer of cracker crumbs and moisten with milk.

  4. Repeat until all oysters are used.

  5. Cover with cracker crumbs and pour in enough milk to achieve a pudding-like consistency.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a tin at 400°F (200°C) for half an hour, then uncover and brown.

  2. Serve in the same dish with a napkin around it.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main filling and savory flavor of the dish.
Oyster crackers
Absorb milk and form a soft, crumbly layer that holds the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown during baking.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and creates the pudding-like texture as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Enough milk must be poured in so the crumbs soften and the dish sets to a pudding-like consistency; too little leaves it dry, while too much makes it soggy and loose.

“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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