Name: Sleeved Breast of Veal with Oysters
Ingredients: 1 inch of cinnamon; 1 sprig of parsley; 1 small sprig of thyme; Juice of 1 large lemon; Liquor of 3 dozen oysters; 3 yolks of eggs; ½ cup of cream; 3 dozen oysters

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sleeved Breast of Veal with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the oysters for five minutes in a muslin bag.
Strain the lemon juice and oyster liquor into a pot.
Simmer gently for three hours, skimming often.
Remove the bag, beat the yolks with the cream, and stir in the oysters.
Cook until the sauce thickens.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cinnamon + thymetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together369 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, lemon, oyster, egg, cream):

Marjoramfits better
Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Cinnamonthe original

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