Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Pies

A pie of oysters topped with a rich cream sauce and crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Pies

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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a rich light crust the day before.

  2. Wash and drain the oysters, using about 8 large oysters per person.

  3. Just before serving, fill small baking dishes with the oysters.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the strained oyster juice, skim it, and mix with ⅓ cup of rich cream.

  2. Thicken the mixture with 1 teaspoon of melted butter and 1 teaspoon of flour, then strain over the oysters.

  3. Fill each dish half full with the juice, as the oysters will shrink in the oven.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and bits of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with the crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until lightly browned.

  2. Serve each dish on a separate plate, garnished with a bit of parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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

Oysters
Provide the main filling, cooking gently in the hot juice and cream sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained juice and cream into a sauce that clings to the oysters.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and browns the crust.
Rich light crust
Seals the dish and browns in the oven, adding a crisp contrast to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill each dish half full with the juice. Oysters shrink as they heat, so leaving room in each dish keeps the sauce from overflowing and leaves the oysters submerged in liquid rather than drying out.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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

More oyster pie recipes

Boston 12Chicken 5 See all 191 →

You might also like

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