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Oyster Short Cakes

A savory dish of oyster-filled shortcakes topped with cream sauce, seasoned with sea salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Short Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the biscuits

  1. Make baking powder biscuits of fairly large size.

  2. Bake the biscuits until done.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. While the biscuits are baking, prepare 4 cups of cream sauce.

  2. In a small saucepan, add 1 cup of oysters and stir occasionally until the gills open.

  3. Drain the oysters.

  4. Add the drained oysters to the cream sauce.

  5. Season the sauce with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the lower halves of the hot short-cakes on a warmed dish.

  2. Pour the oyster and sauce mixture over the biscuits.

  3. Replace the tops.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Biscuit + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking powder biscuits
Provide the soft, layered base that holds the creamy oyster topping.
Oysters
Supply the main flavour and tender texture of the dish.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and moisture, binding the oysters and coating the biscuits.

The step that matters

Stir the oysters until the gills open. Oysters cook quickly; heating them just until the shells' gills open keeps them tender, while overcooking makes them tough and rubbery.

“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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