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An Oyster Pie

A pie filled with oysters, rice, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

An Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Line a pie dish with the pie crust and fill it with uncooked rice.

  2. Butter the edge of the crust.

  3. Cover with puff pastry.

  4. Press the edges together and trim neatly.

Make the oyster filling

  1. Drain the oysters.

  2. Chop the oysters finely.

  3. Mix cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  4. Slowly pour in boiling milk or cream until thick and smooth.

  5. Stir in butter.

  6. Season oysters with salt and pepper.

  7. Add the oysters to the mixture.

  8. Let it simmer for five minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Remove the pie crust from the oven.

  2. Take off the top crust.

  3. Remove the rice.

  4. Fill the dish with the oyster mixture.

  5. Replace the top crust.

  6. Return to the oven until thoroughly 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling.
Milk or cream
Forms the creamy base that the cornstarch thickens.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, more rounded flavour.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in boiling milk or cream until thick and smooth. Cornstarch thickens only as the mixture heats, and pouring slowly while stirring prevents lumps. Adding it too fast can leave clumps of starch that never fully smooth out.

“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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