Name: Oyster Cocktail
Ingredients: oysters; parsley; watercress; lemons; colored tissue paper; ice

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a platter with colored tissue paper underneath.
Surround the ice with parsley or watercress and lemon quarters.
Place the oysters on top of the ice.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Watercress + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Oyster + watercresstop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together62 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,211 recipes

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