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Oyster Pie

A savory pie made with oysters, oyster liquor, cream, butter, cracker crumbs, eggs, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and drain them.

  2. Place the oysters between clean napkins to dry.

  3. Combine the oyster liquor, salt, cream, butter, grated cracker, and cayenne pepper in a stew-pan.

  4. Heat the mixture until it boils.

  5. Mix the chopped hard-boiled eggs with enough bread crumbs to cover the pie top.

  6. Season the egg and breadcrumb mixture with cayenne pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the sides of a pie dish with pastry.

  2. Add the oysters to the pastry-lined dish.

  3. Pour the hot liquor mixture over the oysters.

  4. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture on top.

  5. Cover the pie with a pastry lid.

  6. Cut an opening in the center of the pastry lid.

  7. Decorate the opening with pastry flowers or leaves.

  8. Bake until the crust is done.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 the tender, briny filling of the pie.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated oyster flavour to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Grated cracker
Thickens the liquor mixture, helping it set into a creamy filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the crumb topping through their cooked yolks and whites.

The step that matters

Heat the liquor mixture until it boils. Boiling the cream, butter and grated cracker thickens the mixture by starch swelling and gives a stable sauce; pouring it over the oysters while hot helps the filling bake through evenly.

“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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