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Oyster Patties

A pastry shell filled with a creamy oyster mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Patties

Ingredients

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.

Make the pastry

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and the butter and lard until combined.

  3. Sift the baking powder into the flour mixture.

  4. Add enough ice cold water to form a paste.

  5. Roll the dough thin and cut into shapes to fit muffin pans.

  6. Bake the pastry in the muffin pans until golden.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Stir in the hot cream until smooth, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  3. Add the oysters and simmer until heated through.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the baked pastry shells with the oyster mixture and serve immediately.

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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Cream + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Flour
Builds the pastry structure and thickens the cream filling with the butter.
Butter and lard mixed
Adds fat that keeps the pastry tender and flaky as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pastry rises and lightens.
Hot cream
Makes the filling rich and smooth, giving it body and moisture.
Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the cream into the butter and flour roux until smooth. Flour must be cooked with the fat and whisked into hot liquid so starch swells evenly; adding cream too fast or unevenly can leave lumps. Simmering gently, rather than boiling hard, helps the thickened sauce stay smooth and keeps the oysters from toughening.

“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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