Name: Oyster Cocktail
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup; ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce; a pinch of paprika; ¼ teaspoon salt; 5 drops Tabasco sauce; 5 small chilled oysters

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a bowl, combine lemon juice, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt, and Tabasco sauce.
Chill the mixture.

Serve

Place 5 small chilled oysters in cold champagne glasses.
Pour a little of the chilled sauce over the oysters.

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 + tomatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sauce + oystertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ketchup + oystertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 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

Oysters: Provide the main body and briny flavour of the cocktail.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness, body and a tangy base to the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its sweetness.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savoury depth and umami to the sauce.