Name: Roasted Oysters
Ingredients: large oysters; pepper; lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roasted Oysters

Ingredients

large oysters
pepper
lemon juice

Directions

Preheat your grill or broiler.
Place the oysters on a grill with the deeper shell facing down.
Cook until the oysters are opened and their juices are bubbling.
Remove from heat and season with pepper and a few drops of lemon juice before serving.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,663 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,942 recipes

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