Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: 100 oysters; ½ cup cream; 1 ½ ounces butter; 1 cup grated cracker; Cayenne pepper to taste; 2 hard-boiled eggs; bread crumbs to cover the top; coarse sea salt to taste; pie crust

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the gills from the oysters and drain them. Dry the oysters between clean napkins.
In a saucepan, combine half the oyster liquor with salt, cream, butter, and Cayenne pepper. Heat until warm.
Chop the hard-boiled eggs and mix with enough bread crumbs to cover the pie top. Season with Cayenne pepper and salt.
Line a pie dish with the pie crust, add the oysters, and pour the hot liquor mixture over them.
Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture on top and cover with another layer of pie crust.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,545 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).