Name: Beef-steak and Oyster Pie
Ingredients: beef steaks; oysters; lemon peel; mace; parsley; cream; butter; flour

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Beef-steak and Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef steaks without rolling them.
Layer the beef steaks and oysters in a pie dish.
Stew the oyster liquor and beards with a bit of lemon peel, mace, and parsley.
Bake the pie until cooked through.
In a saucepan, boil three tablespoons of cream with one ounce of butter mixed with flour.
Strain the sauce and pour it into the pie dish.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, oyster, lemon, parsley, cream, butter, flour):

Tarragonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Capersfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, oyster, lemon, parsley, cream, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.