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For Oyster Pate Shells-paste

Shells of pastry filled with oyster pâté or chicken with mushrooms and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

For Oyster Pate Shells-paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a wooden bowl, mix the shortening, flour, salt, and baking powder until it resembles a powder.

  2. Add iced water gradually until the dough is workable and can be rolled out.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut circles like cookies.

  4. Roll a little more butter into the remaining dough, then cut more circles.

Build the shells

  1. Use a smaller ring to cut rounds from the smaller circles and stack them on the larger ones, wetting each layer with milk to adhere.

  2. Continue stacking until the wall is high enough.

Bake and fill

  1. Fill the shells with creamed oysters or chicken mixed with mushrooms and olives.

  2. Bake the center piece separately for each paté.

  3. Bake the shells empty, and if serving cold, cool before filling; if serving hot, add the filling just before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Shortening
Fat that keeps the layers tender and flaky as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the stacked dough walls together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the shells rise and lighten.
Milk
Moistens each layer so the stacked dough sticks together.

The step that matters

Wetting each layer with milk. Milk makes the stacked rounds adhere; without it the layers can separate during baking, weakening the wall of the shell.

“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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