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Oyster Cocktail

A chilled oyster dish served with a tomato-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the liquor from the oysters.

  2. In a bowl, combine the tomato ketchup, horseradish, India chutney, French mustard, tarragon vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce. Mix well to combine all ingredients.

Serve

  1. Serve the oysters chilled with the sauce.

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.

  1. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Horseradish + tarragontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Are the main ingredient, giving the cocktail its seafood flavor and tender texture.
Tomato ketchup
Forms the sweet, tangy base of the cocktail sauce and gives it body.
Horseradish
Adds sharp heat that cuts through the sweetness of the ketchup.
Worcestershire sauce
Contributes savory depth and acidity to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, ketchup, horseradish, mustard, tarragon, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, ketchup, horseradish, mustard, tarragon, vinegar, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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