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Pigs in Blankets

Oysters wrapped in bacon, seasoned with salt and pepper, fried until crispy and served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,663 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pigs in Blankets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the oysters with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Cut the bacon into very thin slices.

  3. Wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon and secure with a wooden toothpick.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in a very hot frying pan until the bacon is crispy.

  2. Serve immediately on slices of toast, keeping the toothpick in.

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. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 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

Large oysters
Provide the central filling, cooking gently in their own juices inside the bacon wrap.
Fat english bacon
Adds fat that crisps and browns, flavouring the oysters as it renders.
Slices of toast
Give a crisp, absorbent base that holds the juices from the cooked oysters and bacon.

The step that matters

Fry in a very hot frying pan until the bacon is crispy. High heat renders the bacon fat quickly and browns the surface before the oysters overcook and turn rubbery. Too low a heat leaves the bacon soggy and the oysters tough.

“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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