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Scalloped Oysters

A baked oyster dish with a creamy sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

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.

Prepare the oysters

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, then remove the gills and strain the liquor to remove grit.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a saucepan, then add enough flour to absorb the butter.

  2. Stir in the white stock, cream, and strained oyster liquor, and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the oysters and season with pepper and salt, heating through without boiling.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter scallop shells and fill them with the oysters and liquid.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and drizzle with oiled butter.

  3. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or under a broiler, then serve immediately while hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters (in the method)
Provide the main seafood flavor and are gently heated so they stay tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the roux and the topping.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
White stock
Adds savory depth to the sauce and thins it to a pourable consistency.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned.

The step that matters

Heat the oysters without boiling. Boiling toughens oyster meat and makes it shrink and turn rubbery, so the oysters should only be heated through in the sauce.

“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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