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Oyster Pie

A savory oyster pie baked in puff pastry, containing oysters, cream, eggs, celery, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Oyster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Strain the oysters and put the liquor into a small cooking dish. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add chopped celery, black pepper, and onion to the boiling liquor.

  3. In a skillet, combine bread crumbs, butter, and cream. Simmer without boiling. If too thick, add more cream.

  4. Stir in chopped yolks and whites of the eggs, lemon peel, paprika, and salt to taste.

  5. Drop oysters into the boiling juice for two minutes, then add them and the vegetables to the cream and eggs mixture.

  6. Pour in enough juice to maintain a thick consistency, then pour into the pudding dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a deep earthenware pudding dish with puff pastry. Make a pastry lid using a pie pan and cover with a thick layer of pastry.

  2. Add a one-inch wide strip of thick crust around the rim of the lid for decoration. Brush the lid lightly with cream.

  3. Bake the lid and dish in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Carefully place the baked crust on top of the pudding dish and serve immediately.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main savory flavor and tender texture of the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a smooth, thick body.
Hard-boiled eggs
Help bind and thicken the filling as they set with the cream.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the filling to a spoonable consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and oyster flavors.

The step that matters

Keep the filling thick before it goes into the crust. If the cream and egg mixture is too thin, it will run and soak the pastry. Adding juice gradually and keeping the mixture from boiling helps it stay thick and cohesive, since boiling can curdle the cream and egg.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, bread, cream, egg, lemon, celery, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, cream, egg, lemon, celery, parsley. 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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