Name: Oyster Saute
Ingredients: large oysters; crumbs (for coating); mayonnaise or cooked salad dressing; butter (for sautéing); slices of lemon; chopped parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the large oysters for a few minutes.
Dry the oysters between towels.
Dip the oysters in crumbs, then in mayonnaise or cooked salad dressing, and again in crumbs.
Sauté the oysters in butter until they are brown.
Serve with slices of lemon dipped in chopped parsley.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,211 recipes

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