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Scalloped Oysters

A baked oyster dish with layers of crackers, oysters, and a custard mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the layers

  1. Crush and roll the crackers.

  2. Put a layer in a buttered baking dish.

  3. Wet the crackers with a mixture of warmed oyster liquor and milk.

  4. Add a layer of oysters, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place small bits of butter on top.

  5. Repeat layers until the dish is full, finishing with a thicker layer of crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg into the milk and pour over the top layer.

  2. Dot with butter.

  3. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the cover to brown if needed.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Crackers
Soak up the liquid and form the crumbly, bread-like body of the dish.
Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender, briny filling between the layers.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and, with the egg, helps the top set into a custard-like layer.
Egg
Binds the liquid and helps the top layer set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Covering and uncovering the dish. Baking covered keeps the moisture in so the oysters cook gently without drying out. Removing the cover at the end lets the surface brown, but leaving it on too long can leave the top pale and soft.

“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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