Name: Oysters or Clams on the Half Shell
Ingredients: Raw Blue Point oysters; Raw Little Neck clams; Cracked ice; Lemon wedges

Why it works: Oyster and clam work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 111 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oysters or Clams on the Half Shell

Ingredients

Raw Blue Point oysters
Raw Little Neck clams
Cracked ice
Lemon wedges

Directions

Select small, uniform oysters and clams.
Open them shortly before serving by cutting the muscle that holds them to the shell.
Serve each oyster or clam on its deep valve.
Arrange them in a circle with the beaks turned to the center on a bed of cracked ice.
Garnish with lemon wedges in the center.

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.

Oyster + clamtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together111 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Clam + lemontop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,942 recipes

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