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Oyster Pie

A savory pie filled with oysters, mushrooms, milk, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove gills from oysters.

  2. In a hot dry skillet, cook oysters until they boil.

  3. Add milk, parsley, flour, butter, mushrooms, cream, and Tabasco sauce.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into pastry and bake.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 minutes. Simmering the milk and cream with flour lets the starch swell and thicken the sauce. Too little cooking leaves it thin and runny in the pie.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, milk, flour, mushroom, sauce, cream. 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.

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