Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: 100 oysters; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 tablespoon nutmeg; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 tablespoon mace; 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped fine; rich pastry for crust

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Spread rich pastry around the edge and sides of a large deep dish.

Fill and bake

Remove the gills from the oysters and place them in the dish with their liquor.
Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and chopped hard boiled eggs.
Cover with an upper crust 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters: Form the main filling and contribute their briny, savory flavor and moisture.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and richness to the filling as they are chopped fine.
Rich pastry: Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg):

Allspicefits better
Clovefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.