Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Patties

Oyster patties made with pastry dough and a seasoned oyster filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oyster Patties

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 the patties

  1. Line the bottom and sides of patty pans with rich pastry dough.

  2. Cover with more pastry and pinch the edges together.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes, or until done.

Make the filling

  1. Stew the oysters in their own liquor, then cut them into pieces.

  2. Add flour, butter, grated lemon peel, salt, mace, cayenne, and cream to the oysters. Mix well.

Fill and serve

  1. Open the patties.

  2. Fill each with a tablespoon of the oyster mixture.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Oysters
Provide the main filling, becoming tender when gently stewed and cut into pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the oyster mixture so it holds together inside the patty.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the filling's texture.
Rich pastry dough
Forms the crisp, sturdy shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stew the oysters gently. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be stewed only until just firm and cooked through. Keeping their own liquor in the pan preserves flavor and moisture in the filling.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, flour, butter, mace, pepper, cream):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, flour, butter, mace, pepper, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes