Name: Celeried Oysters
Ingredients: 1 dozen oysters; 2 egg yolks; ½ cup rich cream; salt to taste; pepper to taste; a pinch of nutmeg; 1 teaspoon butter; buttered toast

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celeried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan.
Add the oysters and celery, seasoning with salt and pepper.
Cover and simmer for 3 minutes.
Stir in the sherry and simmer for 2 minutes longer.
Serve the mixture on buttered toast.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, egg, cream, pepper, butter):

Nutmegthe original
Parsleyfits about as well
Tarragonfits less well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, cream, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.