Name: Oyster Cocktail
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons tomato ketchup; 3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar; 3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce; 3 drops Tabasco sauce; 8 small oysters; 1 teaspoon finely chopped celery

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

6 tablespoons tomato ketchup
3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3 drops Tabasco sauce
8 small oysters
1 teaspoon finely chopped celery

Directions

Make the sauce

In a bowl, combine the tomato ketchup, tarragon vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco sauce.

Assemble

Place 8 small oysters in each glass.
Pour the sauce mixture over the oysters.
Sprinkle finely chopped celery on top.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together456 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters: Provide the main seafood body and briny flavour of the cocktail.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness, body and a rich tomato base to the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the oysters.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savoury depth and umami to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

Mustardfits better
Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, tarragon, vinegar, sauce, oyster, celery. 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.