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Oyster Cocktail

A chilled appetizer of oysters topped with Tabasco, Worcestershire, ketchup, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and place them in a serving dish.

  2. Drizzle with Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and tomato ketchup.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and squeeze lemon juice over the top.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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.

  1. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Oyster + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 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

Oysters
Form the raw base of the cocktail, providing the main texture and briny flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and begins to firm the oyster flesh.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and umami to the seasoning.
Tabasco sauce
Adds heat and a sharp vinegary bite.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Once dressed with lemon juice and salt, the raw oysters keep changing. The acid firms and toughens the flesh if the dish stands, so it should go to the table right away.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sauce, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Grapefits about as well

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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