Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Pates

A pastry shell filled with oysters in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pates

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.

Make the pastry

  1. Make a rich puff pastry.

  2. Roll the pastry very thin to line small tins.

  3. Prick the dough with a fork to allow air to escape.

  4. Bake the pastry shells in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk or water until smooth.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the boiling cream.

  4. Stir in the butter, pepper, and salt.

  5. In boiling water, cook the oysters until they begin to swell.

  6. Add the oysters to the cream sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the baked pastry shells with the oyster mixture.

  2. 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Cream + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cream
Forms the rich, smooth body of the sauce that carries the oysters.
Flour
Thickens the boiling cream into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the sauce.
Oysters
Provide the main savory filling, firmed briefly so they stay tender in the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with the flour mixture. Flour must be fully smooth before it meets the boiling cream, or it will form lumps. Adding it to boiling liquid and keeping it moving lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce.

“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

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes