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Beefsteak and Oyster Pig

A pastry-crusted casserole of beefsteak and oysters, seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, ketchup, and oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and ketchup work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Oyster Pig

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Gently beat the steak with a rolling pin and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Line a deep dish with pastry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the steak with oysters in the dish.

  2. Pour in the oyster liquor, add mace and ketchup.

  3. Cover with a top crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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. Oyster + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mace + ketchuptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together807 recipes

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Beefsteak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savory as it cooks through.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor that stands out against the beef.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated oyster flavor to the filling.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness, acidity and depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. The steak and oysters must reach a safe internal temperature while the crust browns. Underbaking leaves the meat undercooked, and overbaking dries the filling and toughens the beef, so check that the meat is fully cooked before serving.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, oyster, ketchup):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, oyster, ketchup. 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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