Name: Broiled Oysters
Ingredients: small oysters; table butter; coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper; lemon juice; rich cream; slices of bread; olives; fresh parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Grease a wire gridiron with table butter.
Spread the oysters on one half of the gridiron and fold the other half over them.
Place the gridiron over a clear fire and broil the oysters, turning them once.
Melt some table butter and mix in coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.
Moisten the toast in rich cream and butter it well, then cut into small slices.
Place the broiled oysters on the toast and drizzle with melted butter.
Garnish with olives and fresh parsley, and serve very hot.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).