Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: puff pastry; oysters; batter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; oyster liquor; flour

Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

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.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a deep dish with puff pastry.
Pat in the oysters and season with bits of batter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.
Pour some oyster liquor over the oysters.
Cover with the pie crust and cut a hole in the top.
Bake thoroughly, sprinkling a little flour over the oysters before baking.

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.

Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,663 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,582 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).