Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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.
Make the filling
Stew the oysters in their own liquor.
Thicken the liquor with butter and flour.
Assemble and bake
Line a deep dish with pie crust.
Place a small teacup upside down in the center of the dish to hold the juice.
Pour the oysters and liquor into the dish.
Cover with a top crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,582 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, 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
- Oysters
- Provide the main flavor and release their liquor, which becomes the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and carries the flour so it blends smoothly into the liquor.
- Flour
- Thickens the oyster liquor into a sauce that holds the filling together.
- Pie crust
- Forms the structure that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Thicken the liquor with butter and flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly with the butter and liquor and cooked briefly so its starch swells evenly. Otherwise the sauce can be lumpy and taste raw.
“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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