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Oyster Pie

A baked pastry filled with oysters, flour, butter, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

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 the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and butter (or lard) with enough water to form a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and line a pudding dish.

Layer the filling

  1. Drain the oysters and layer them in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with flour, pepper, and salt, and add bits of butter.

  3. Repeat layering until all oysters are used, adding more butter on top.

  4. Pour the oyster liquor over the layers.

  5. If there's little liquor, substitute with milk.

Bake

  1. Cover with the remaining crust.

  2. Cut a hole in the center.

  3. Bake until the crust is delicately browned.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

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 and its briny, savoury flavour.
Flour
Forms the dough that encloses the filling and helps thicken the juices.
Butter
Adds richness and flakiness to the crust and moisture to the layers.
Lard
Can replace butter in the crust, adding tenderness and flakiness.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated oyster flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Layering and liquid. Enough liquid must reach the oysters so the filling steams rather than drying out. Using the oyster liquor first keeps the flavour concentrated, and milk is a suitable backup if there is little liquor.

“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.

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