Name: Oyster Cocktail
Ingredients: 7 blue point oysters; 4 tablespoons catsup; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; 1 dash Tabasco sauce; 1¼ teaspoons horseradish; a pinch of salt; ½ lemon

Why it works: Horseradish and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Oyster Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Open the oysters on the deep shell.
Fill a soup plate with cracked ice.

Assemble and serve

Place a small glass in the center containing a sauce made with catsup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, horseradish, and salt.
Serve with lemon.

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.

Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together775 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + horseradishtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together282 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,942 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Blue point oysters: Provide the raw shellfish that is the main element of the cocktail.
Catsup: Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce that is served with the oysters.
Horseradish: Adds sharp heat and pungency that cuts through the richness of the oysters.