Name: Mock Oyster Soup
Ingredients: 12 stalks vegetable oysters; 1 quart boiling water; 1 pint milk; 1 slice butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; pepper to taste; 1 sprig parsley; 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Mock Oyster Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape the vegetable oysters and place them in cold water with vinegar or lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Cut into thin slices.
In a stew pan, combine the sliced vegetable oysters, boiling water, onion, and parsley. Cook slowly for 30 minutes or until tender.
In a double boiler, heat the milk and add the butter and flour mixed together. Stir until smooth and slightly thickened.
Once the vegetable oysters are tender, strain them through a colander and add to the double boiler. Season to taste and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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, milk, butter, flour, pepper, vinegar):

Parsleythe original
Tarragonfits about as well
Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well

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