Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: raw pastry (made previously); stale bread or light crackers; butter (for greasing); 1 pint oyster liquor; 1 cup milk; 1 tablespoon corn starch; pepper (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); 2 tablespoons butter (if using 1 quart of oysters)

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Roll out the raw pastry into a thick sheet.
Fill a pudding dish with crusts of stale bread or light crackers.
Butter the edges of the dish for easy removal.
Cover the dish with the pastry and create a decorative edge.
Bake until golden brown.
In separate vessels, heat the oyster liquor and milk.
Once the liquor boils, add the oysters and cook for 5 more minutes.
Mix the corn starch with cold water, then stir into the hot milk until thickened.
Pour the thickened milk over the oysters and liquor, then season with pepper and salt.
Add butter if using a quart of oysters.
Carefully lift the hot crust from the pudding dish and remove the stale bread.
Pour the stewed oysters and enough soup to cover them into the dish.
Replace the pastry and set in the oven for 2-3 minutes.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).