Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 tablespoon fine cracker crumbs or rice flour; Oysters (amount as desired); Pie crust

Why it works: Egg and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 tablespoon fine cracker crumbs or rice flour
Oysters (amount as desired)
Pie crust

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cook the oysters in a pot for 5 minutes.
Beat in the eggs and add the cracker crumbs or rice flour to thicken.

Assemble and bake

Lift the top crust of the pie, pour in the hot oyster mixture, and cover with the crust.
Bake until the crust is golden and 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.

Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + oystertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Beaten into the oysters to bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs or rice flour: Absorbs liquid from the oyster mixture so the filling thickens rather than running.
Oysters: Provide the main flavor and filling of the pie.

“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.