Name: Oyster Omelet
Ingredients: 12 oysters; 4 eggs; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley

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 ↓

Oyster Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the oysters in their own liquor, then skim them out and let them cool.
Add the oysters to the beaten eggs, either whole or minced.
In a pan, melt the butter and mix in the flour to thicken the liquid.
Season the mixture with salt, cayenne pepper, and chopped parsley.
Chop the oysters and add them to the sauce.
Place a few spoonfuls of the sauce in the center of the omelet before folding.
When serving, pour the remaining sauce around the omelet.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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).
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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, egg, butter, flour, pepper):

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

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