Name: Oyster Cocktail Sauce
Ingredients: 7 teaspoons prepared horseradish; 7 teaspoons tomato ketchup; 7 teaspoons vinegar; 10 teaspoons lemon juice; 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce; salt to taste; pepper to taste; oyster juice to make 12 glasses

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce 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 Sauce

12 glasses

Ingredients

Directions

Combine horseradish, tomato ketchup, vinegar, lemon juice, and Tabasco sauce in a bowl.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in enough oyster juice to reach a total of 12 glasses. Mix well and serve chilled.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + ketchuptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together223 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

Prepared horseradish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness and body, giving the sauce its red colour and smooth texture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Lemon juice: Adds fresh acidity and aroma that lift the sauce.
Oyster juice: Adds briny, savoury liquid that thins the sauce and carries its seafood flavour.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, tomato, ketchup, vinegar, sauce, pepper, oyster. 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.