Name: Broiled Oysters
Ingredients: oysters; melted butter; coarse sea salt; pepper; toast; pickles

Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Broiled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters as for frying and dry them well.
Dip the oysters in melted butter.
Rub a fine wire broiler with butter or salt pork.
Place the oysters on the broiler over hot coals and cook until the juice flows.
Serve the oysters on rounds or squares of toast, three or four on each piece.
Pour a little melted butter over the oysters and season with pepper.
Serve with any kind of pickles.

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.

Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 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).