Name: Angels on Horseback
Ingredients: thick bread; anchovy butter; oysters; cayenne pepper; fat bacon; chopped parsley; lemon juice

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Angels on Horseback

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Toast the thick bread and cut it into squares about 1½ inches each way.
Spread anchovy butter on each toast.
Place one or two oysters in the center of each toast and season with cayenne pepper.
Lay a thin piece of fat bacon on top of each oyster, pat it flat to prevent curling.
Add a little chopped parsley and a small squeeze of lemon juice on the bacon.
Place the toasts on a baking sheet and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot.
Serve on an ornamented dish or neatly folded napkin.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).