Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: 1 large deep dish; ½ cup rich pastry dough; 100 oysters, shucked; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 tablespoon mixed nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace; 6 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped; butter (to taste)

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 the pastry dough around the edge and sides of the deep dish.

Fill and bake

Pour the oysters into the dish, including some of their liquor.
Add salt, pepper, mixed spices, chopped eggs, and butter.
Cover with an upper crust and bake until golden brown.

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: Provide the main filling and their briny liquor adds moisture and savory flavor.
Rich pastry dough: Forms the structure of the crust, holding the filling while it bakes and browns.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add body and richness to the filling as they bind with the oysters' liquor.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and helps the crust and filling brown.

Swap the mace

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

Allspicefits better
Clovefits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg, butter. 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.