Name: Oyster Pie
Ingredients: oysters; potatoes; turnips; celery; vegetables or noodles; cake

Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup using bones from previous roasts and add vegetables or noodles.
Make the oyster pie by layering oysters with the prepared soup.
Serve with mashed potatoes, turnips, and celery sauce.
Finish the meal with iced apples and cake.

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.

Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Oyster + potatotop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together229 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Oyster + celerytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,131 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).