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Oysters on Toast

Oysters on Toast is a dish of sautéed oysters mixed with butter, egg yolks, and cream, served on buttered toast.

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 ↓

Oysters on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the oysters moderately fine and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the chopped oysters.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the cream and stir into the oyster mixture.

  4. Cook until the eggs set, then serve on slices of buttered toast.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + buttertop 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

Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and tender texture of the topping.
Egg yolks
Set into a creamy custard when heated, binding the oyster mixture together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the set egg yolks.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps cook the oysters gently in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook until the eggs set. Egg yolks thicken with heat, but overheating causes them to scramble and turn grainy. Stop cooking once the mixture is just set and creamy so it stays smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, butter, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, butter, egg, cream, bread. 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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