Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: rich biscuit crust; 1 quart oysters; rolled crackers; pepper; coarse sea salt; butter; 1 pint rich milk

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

Assemble

Line the sides of a baking pan with rich biscuit crust.
Add a layer of oysters, followed by a layer of rolled crackers.
Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and bits of butter.
Repeat until you have used 1 quart of oysters.
Pour 1 pint of rich milk over the layers.

Bake

Cover with more crust 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Biscuit + oystertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together183 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters: Provide the main filling and their briny flavor.
Rich biscuit crust: Forms the pastry lining and top crust that encloses the filling.
Rolled crackers: Layered with the oysters to add bulk and absorb some of the liquid.
Rich milk: Moistens the layers and helps form a creamy filling as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the filling and crust.

“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.