Name: Stewed Oystees
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 tablespoon corn starch; 2 cups cream or milk; salt to taste

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Oystees

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 cups cream or milk
salt to taste

Directions

Wash and drain the oysters if not using shell oysters.
Mix the butter and corn starch in a porcelain kettle.
Add the oysters and stir until they boil.
Pour in the cream or milk and add salt to taste.
Do not use the liquor of the oysters.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).