Skip to main content
Main

Boston Oyster Pie

A baked pie filled with oysters, butter, cream, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Boston 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. Butter the inside of a pudding dish and line it with pie crust.

  3. Bake the crust until done.

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine the oysters with just enough of their liquor to prevent burning.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Add a little sweet cream or milk and the rolled crackers.

  4. Simmer gently without boiling to avoid shriveling the oysters.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the filling into the baked pie crust and cover with the upper crust.

  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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main filling and provide the dish's briny, savoury flavour.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling, with a baked base and top layer.
Sweet cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the filling, softening its texture.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling slightly as they soften.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour in the seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling toughens oyster proteins and makes them shrivel and curl, leaving them rubbery. Gentle heat keeps them plump and tender.

“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