[3] Jules developed the dish due to a shortage of escargot, substituting the locally available oysters.

[3] It consists of oysters on the half-shell topped with a green sauce and bread crumbs, then baked or broiled.

Chef Alton Brown states in the "Shell Game" episode of his Food Network series Good Eats that Alciatore took his recipe to the grave and any version since is merely an assumption.

While many achieve the sauce's trademark green color simply using spinach, Antoine's chefs have repeatedly denied the dish contains it.

A 1986 laboratory analysis by William Poundstone in Bigger Secrets indicated its primary ingredients were parsley, pureed and strained celery, scallions or chives (indistinguishable in a food lab), olive oil, and capers.