Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Pie with Hard-boiled Eggs

A baked oyster pie with hard-boiled eggs and a buttery crust.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour 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 with Hard-boiled Eggs

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 filling

  1. Carefully remove any bits of shell from the oysters.

  2. Place the oysters in a pudding dish with their liquor.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, bits of butter, and hot water.

  4. Arrange the sliced hard-boiled eggs around the oysters.

Make and bake the pie

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and butter (or lard) with enough water to form a pie crust.

  2. Roll out the crust to cover the dish.

  3. Before covering, place an inverted teacup in the center of the dish to hold the crust up.

  4. Cover the dish, cut a slit in the middle, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes until the crust is done.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 flavor and tender texture of the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pie crust as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and turns light.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender, flaky crust.

The step that matters

Placing the inverted teacup. The cup must sit in the center before covering so the crust is lifted off the filling. Without it, the crust can sink onto the oysters and cook unevenly, leaving the filling soggy.

“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