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Oyster Pie

A baked pastry dish containing oysters, wine, cracker crumbs, butter, mace, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix white wine, cracker crumbs, and butter.

  2. Line a pie dish with puff pastry and fill it with the mixture.

  3. Add half of the oyster liquor and cover with more pastry.

  4. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

  5. Serve hot.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  3. White wine + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. White wine + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

White wine
Adds liquid and acidity that moistens the crumb filling and brightens the flavour.
Fine cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling so it holds its body in the pie.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the filling.
Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender texture of the pie filling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter, oyster):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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