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Fish and Oyster Pie

A savory pie made with cold fish, oysters, bread crumbs, nutmeg, parsley, butter or white sauce, baked with a browned crumb or puff pastry top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish and Oyster Pie

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. Remove bones from the fish and layer it in a pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with pepper and salt.

Layer and top

  1. Add a layer of bread crumbs, followed by oysters, nutmeg, and parsley.

  2. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  3. Before adding the top, pour in melted butter or thin white sauce and oyster liquor.

  4. Top with browned bread crumbs or puff pastry cut into strips laid in a cross pattern.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes if using cooked fish, or 1 hour if using fresh fish and puff pastry.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the bulk of the pie and gives it its savoury base.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour that pairs with the fish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the juices and add body between the layers, and brown on top.
Melted butter or thin white sauce
Adds richness and moisture so the filling does not dry out in the oven.
Grated nutmeg
Adds warm aroma that complements the seafood.

The step that matters

Pouring in the butter or white sauce and oyster liquor before the top. The liquid moistens the crumbs and fish as they bake. Adding it before the top layer lets it soak through the filling rather than pooling on the surface.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, oyster, pepper, bread, parsley, butter. 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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