Name: Devilled Oysters
Ingredients: 1 pint oysters; ½ cup cream; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 egg yolks; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Devilled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Drain and slightly chop the oysters.
Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir quickly until well mixed.
Add the hot cream, egg yolks, and seasoning to the mixture.
Combine the mixture with the oysters and stir well.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the parsley

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

Nutmegfits better
Parsleythe original
Capersfits about as well
Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, cream, butter, flour, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.