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Oyster Filling for Patties

A creamy oyster filling made with butter, flour, cream, eggs, mace, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Filling for Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Scald the oysters in their liquor, then drain and cut each one into four pieces.

  2. Melt butter, then add flour and cream.

  3. Season with mace and salt.

  4. Remove the sauce from heat and let it cool slightly.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  6. Return the sauce to the heat and stir until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the oyster pieces.

  2. Serve the filling in hot pattie-shells or bread croustades.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving a rich, smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Provides fat for the sauce, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Oysters
Supply the main savoury flavour and tender texture of the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the base of the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat, then return to heat. Egg yolks set at around 70°C and can scramble if added to a hot sauce. Cooling the sauce first lets them thicken smoothly when gently reheated.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, oyster, butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, oyster, butter, cream. 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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