Name: Cream Op Oyster Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint oyster liquor; 1 pint sweet cream or ½ pint milk and ½ pint cream; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 2 tablespoons butter; Chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon flour or cornstarch; 3 egg yolks

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Op Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

In a double boiler, combine the oyster liquor and sweet cream (or milk and cream).
Bring the mixture to a boil, then skim off any foam.
Season with salt, pepper, butter, and parsley.
Just before serving, add the oysters and boil until plump.
Thicken the cream with flour or cornstarch mixed with a little milk.
In a soup tureen, beat the egg yolks, then pour the boiling cream over them while stirring continuously.
Stir in the oysters and liquor, then serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, cream, pepper, butter, flour, egg):

Nutmegbetter flavor fit
Parsleythe original
Capersabout as good a flavor fit
Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, pepper, butter, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).