Name: Oyster Patties
Ingredients: 12 oysters; ½ pint thick white sauce; ¼ pint cream; nutmeg, to taste; cayenne pepper, to taste; lemon peel, to taste; anchovy sauce, to taste; puff pastry

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Put the oyster liquor and gills into an enamelled pan with a piece of lemon peel, cayenne, anchovy sauce, and nutmeg.
Boil for about 10 minutes, then strain and mix with the cream and thick white sauce, boiling gently.
Cut each oyster into four pieces and add to the mixture, adjusting seasoning if necessary.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sauce, cream, nutmeg, pepper, anchovy):

Lemonthe original
Limefits about as well
Avocadofits less well
Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sauce, cream, nutmeg, pepper, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.