Name: Oyster Sauce
Ingredients: liquor from opened oysters; butter; salt; pepper; water (if oysters are strong-tasted); cream (optional)

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,516 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the oysters in their liquor.
Remove the oysters and set them aside.
Strain the liquor to remove impurities and let it cool.
Melt butter using the strained liquor instead of water.
Add the oysters to the melted butter and boil for a short time.
Season with salt and pepper, keeping the butter thin.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,886 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together7,663 recipes

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