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Oyster Pudding

A baked pudding made with oysters, rice, butter, cream, and egg, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pudding

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.

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters from their liquor.

Layer and bake

  1. In a pudding dish, layer half of the rice, followed by half of the oysters.

  2. Add another layer of rice, then the remaining oysters, and top with the remaining rice.

  3. In a bowl, mix the butter, cream, oyster liquor, beaten egg, pepper, and salt.

  4. Pour the mixture over the layered pudding.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and tender bite that sits between the rice layers.
Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the cream and butter mixture so it sets into a custard when baked.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the custard stay soft and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the custard.
Oyster liquor
Adds briny oyster flavour to the custard, seasoning it from within.

The step that matters

Use very dry rice. Rice that is too wet dilutes the custard and keeps it from setting properly, leaving the pudding soggy instead of firm and sliceable.

“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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