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Fish and Oyster Pie

A savory pie of oysters and sole, seasoned with parsley, breadcrumbs, lemon, nutmeg, cayenne, and baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish and Oyster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the seasoning

  1. Mix parsley, bread crumbs, lemon rind, nutmeg, salt, cayenne, lemon juice, and milk in a bowl.

Assemble the pie

  1. In a pie dish, layer the seasoning, then add oysters and pieces of sole.

  2. Repeat with another layer of seasoning, fish, and oysters.

  3. Line the edges of the dish with pastry, twist bars across, and decorate with leaves.

  4. Fill the dish with oyster liquor mixed with a little milk.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main briny flavour and soft, tender texture in the filling.
Fillets of sole
Form the bulk of the filling, giving a delicate, flaky texture when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the milk and oyster liquor, helping the filling hold together.
Milk
Adds moisture to the seasoning and the liquid poured into the pie.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and forms a crisp, browned crust during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, bread, lemon, pepper, milk, oyster):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, bread, lemon, pepper, milk, oyster. 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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