Name: Cocktail of Little Neck Clams and Oysters
Ingredients: 6 little neck clams or oysters per person; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 tablespoon mushroom catsup; 6 drops Tabasco sauce; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 teaspoons horseradish

Why it works: Lemon and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cocktail of Little Neck Clams and Oysters

6 clams or oysters per person

Ingredients

6 little neck clams or oysters per person
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon mushroom catsup
6 drops Tabasco sauce
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
2 teaspoons horseradish

Directions

Prepare

Chill the clams or oysters thoroughly.
In a bowl, mix lemon juice, mushroom catsup, Tabasco sauce, coarse sea salt, and horseradish.

Serve

Serve 1½ tablespoons of the mixture in sherry glasses, grapefruit, lemon, or orange shells, or fresh tomatoes or peppers.

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.

Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together775 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + horseradishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together269 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clam + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together117 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams or oysters: Provide the main shellfish flavor and texture of the cocktail.
Horseradish: Adds sharp heat that cuts through the richness of the shellfish.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the seafood.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, mushroom, sauce, horseradish):

Avocadofits better
Lemonthe original
Limefits about as well
Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, mushroom, sauce, horseradish. 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.