Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Oyster Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the oysters in a small shallow pan.
Put a small teacup upside down in the center of the pan.
Season the oysters with salt, pepper, and small lumps of butter.
Pour in 2-3 tablespoons of hot water.
Slice the hard-boiled eggs and layer them over the oysters.
Make and bake the crust
Make a short crust by mixing flour, butter, and milk until it forms a dough.
Roll the dough to about 1 inch thick and place it over the oysters.
Cut a small slit in the crust over the teacup and bake until the crust is golden.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavour and the body of the filling, with their liquor adding moisture.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add richness and a firm, sliced layer that give the filling body.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the short crust that encloses the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crust and helps it brown.
- Milk
- Moistens the flour into a dough and helps the crust turn golden.
The step that matters
Cut a slit in the crust over the teacup. The slit lets steam escape as the filling heats. Without it, trapped steam can build pressure and lift or soften the crust, and the oysters may cook unevenly under it.
“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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