Name: Oysters on Ice
Ingredients: raw oysters; clear ice; parsley; sliced lemon; napkin; smilax (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Oysters on Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Select a rectangular piece of clear ice with smooth surfaces.
Melt a cavity in the ice large enough to hold the oysters using a hot brick or flat-iron.
Pour out the water from the melted ice, wash the cavity, and dry it.
Place well-drained oysters in the cavity.
Set the ice on a thick napkin on a platter.
Garnish with parsley and sliced lemon.
Optionally, create a bed of smilax or parsley around the napkin to conceal it, placing lemon on this green bed.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,942 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).