Name: Oyster Patties with Cream Dressing
Ingredients: 1 quart of cream; ½ cup of butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 small cup of flour; water (for paste); 2 quarts of oysters; 6 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Oyster Patties with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

Make patties from rich puff pastry.

Make the dressing

In a saucepan, combine cream and butter; season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.
Mix flour with enough water to form a thin paste.
Stir the flour paste into the hot cream along with the liquor from the oysters and boil.

Cook the oysters and assemble

Pour boiling water over the oysters and heat until they float to the top.
Add the oysters to the dressing along with the finely chopped hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cream: Forms the rich, smooth body of the dressing and carries the other flavors.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour: Thickens the hot cream into a dressing that holds the oysters and eggs.
Oysters: Provide the main savory flavor and tender texture of the filling.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and a mild richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the hot cream. Flour thickens properly only when it is fully dispersed and boiled. Adding the paste to cream that is not hot, or stopping before boiling, can leave lumps or a raw starchy taste.

“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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Oyster Patties with Cream Dressing