Name: Oyster Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint good tomato catsup; ⅓ cup Worcestershire sauce; 2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce; ½ cup good vinegar

Why it works: Tomato and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,469 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

1 pint good tomato catsup
⅓ cup Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
½ cup good vinegar

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a jar and shake well to mix.
Serve with raw 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.

Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,063 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sauce + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,844 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato catsup: Provides the sweet, tangy tomato base that forms the body of the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savory depth and a salty, fermented note to balance the sweetness.
Tabasco sauce: Contributes sharp heat that cuts through the richness of the oysters.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and offsets the sweetness of the catsup.