Name: Oyster Stuffing
Ingredients: 1½ cups bread crumbs; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon chopped celery; 3 tablespoons butter; 1 egg; 1 onion, chopped; 3 dozen oysters, coarsely chopped; Milk, as needed to moisten

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oyster Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, celery, and butter.
Chop the onion and oysters coarsely, then add to the mixture.
Beat the egg and add it to the bowl.
Pour in enough milk to moisten the mixture well and mix thoroughly.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, parsley, celery, butter, egg, oyster):

Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

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