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Oysters

Baked oysters coated in parsley, lemon rind, nutmeg, cayenne, and breadcrumb mixture, served with celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Open the oysters and place them in a clean basin or soup plate.

  2. Mix parsley, lemon rind, nutmeg, stale bread crumbs, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  3. Dip each oyster in the beaten egg yolks, then roll each oyster in the breadcrumb mixture until coated.

Bake and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Arrange the oysters on a tray.

  3. Bake, turning frequently until they are brown and crusty.

  4. Serve with thinly sliced bread and butter, and add salt to taste.

  5. Enjoy with celery for added flavor.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, cooked gently in their coating until heated through.
Egg yolks
Bind the breadcrumb coating to the oysters and help it set and brown.
Stale french roll
Forms the crumb coating that becomes crisp and brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the coating brown and crisp.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the coating.

The step that matters

Turning the oysters while they bake. Turning them frequently exposes all sides to the oven's heat so the crumb coating browns evenly and crisps rather than scorching in one spot or staying pale on another. Overcooking can make the oysters tough and shrink them, so watch for browning as the signal to stop.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, parsley, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, parsley, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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