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Pie of Oysters and Sweet-breads

A pastry pie filled with oysters, sweetbread, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Pie of Oysters and Sweet-breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sweetbread in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Transfer to cold water, drain, and cut into small pieces, removing all skin and strings.

  3. Strain the oysters, saving the liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the cream and oyster liquor, and boil for 1 minute.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, layer in the oysters, then the sweetbread, and pour the sauce over.

  2. Cover with pastry and bake until golden.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Sweetbread
Provides the tender, rich meat that forms the body of the filling.
Oysters
Supply the briny, savoury flavour that defines the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps form the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding the cream and oyster liquor. Flour only thickens fully when it is heated long enough to cook out its raw taste and swell with the liquid. Boiling for the stated minute activates the starch so the sauce sets properly rather than staying thin or floury.

“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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