Name: Oysters Scalloped with Spaghetti
Ingredients: spaghetti; fresh raw oysters; salt; pepper; butter; oyster liquor; grated cheese; parsley; toasted bread

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 ↓

Oysters Scalloped with Spaghetti

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the spaghetti cut into small pieces until soft.
Layer spaghetti in a baking dish.
Add a layer of fresh raw oysters, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and bits of butter.
Repeat layers until the dish is full.
Pour over the oyster liquor and cover with grated cheese and bits of butter.
Bake until golden brown and serve immediately, garnished with parsley and triangles of toasted bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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, pepper, butter, cheese, bread):

Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Sagefits less well
Nutmegfits less well

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