Name: Oyster Cocktail
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon grated horseradish; 1-2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce; 2 teaspoons vinegar; 5 teaspoons lemon juice; 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce; 2 teaspoons tomato ketchup

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup 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

1 teaspoon grated horseradish
1-2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons vinegar
5 teaspoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons tomato ketchup

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine the grated horseradish, Tabasco sauce, vinegar, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and tomato ketchup.
Mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Serve in Sherry glasses, grapefruit halves, or lemon shells.

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.

Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + ketchuptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together223 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, sauce, vinegar, tomato, ketchup):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonthe original
Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, sauce, vinegar, tomato, ketchup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.