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Lamb Pie with Oysters

A savory pie filled with stewed lamb and oysters in a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lamb Pie with 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.

Make the filling

  1. Wash lamb chops.

  2. Place them in a stew kettle with enough water to cover them.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Add flour to thicken the gravy.

  5. Stew over low heat until lamb is tender, ensuring gravy does not scorch.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Add oysters, ensuring all shells are removed.

  8. Stir to combine.

  9. Adjust seasoning to taste, ensuring gravy not too thin.

Make the pastry

  1. Make pastry with 1.5 pounds flour and 1 pound butter (or ½ pound lard).

  2. Roll out pastry thinly.

  3. Line a greased pie dish with pastry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill dish with lamb and oyster mixture, pouring in just enough gravy to avoid boiling out.

  2. Roll out a lid of moderate thickness.

  3. Place lid over filling.

  4. Seal edges by pressing with thumb.

  5. Trim excess pastry.

  6. Cut small vents in top.

  7. Bake in moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lamb + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Lamb chops
Provide the meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the filling rather than running thin.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the filling as they warm through.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure of the pastry, giving it strength to hold the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the pastry rich, tender and flaky as it bakes.

The step that matters

Keep the gravy thick before filling the pie. Too much liquid in the filling can boil out during baking, making the pastry soggy and the pie watery. Adding oysters after removing the heat and checking thickness helps control this.

“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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