Name: Oyster Soup
Ingredients: 2 quarts of oysters; 1 quart of milk; 2 tablespoons of butter; 1 teacup of water; Lima beans to taste; spices to taste; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the gills from the oysters.
In a saucepan, combine the water and oysters.
If using dried Lima beans, soak them overnight.
The next day, cook the soaked beans in salted cold water until soft.
Add the cooked beans to the saucepan with the oysters.
Stir in the butter and pepper.
If using canned beans, add them to the boiling mixture and proceed as above.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + lima beanstop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Milk + lima beanstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Oyster + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,933 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).