Skip to main content
Main

Oysters, Scalloped

Scalloped oysters are baked in shells with a white sauce, lemon, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oysters, Scalloped

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the oysters and sauce

  1. Blanch the oysters in their own liquor and remove the gills.

  2. Cut the oysters in halves and strain the liquor into the white sauce.

  3. Boil the sauce until sufficiently reduced.

  4. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.

Assemble the shells

  1. Brush 8 or 9 small scallop shells with nearly cold clarified butter.

  2. Coat the shells with breadcrumbs.

  3. Distribute the oysters equally among the shells.

  4. Add the prepared sauce to the shells.

  5. Cover lightly with breadcrumbs.

  6. Place 2 or 3 small pieces of butter on top of each shell.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned, about 20 minutes, and serve 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Provide the main filling, becoming tender and briny when gently heated in the sauce.
White sauce
Binds the oysters together and keeps the filling moist during baking.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the breadcrumb topping brown and crisp.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the oysters' saltiness.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce. If the sauce is not reduced enough, it stays thin and will make the filling watery and the crumbs soggy. Reducing it to a thick consistency concentrates flavor and lets the sauce hold the oysters in the shells.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes