Name: To Make a Crab Gombo
Ingredients: 12 to 18 crabs, prepared for stewing; flour, for dusting; boiling lard (or oil); 1 onion, chopped; ¼ pound ham, diced (or ¼ pound butter for a fast-day dinner)

Why it works: Crab and onion work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 311 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

To Make a Crab Gombo

Ingredients

12 to 18 crabs, prepared for stewing
flour, for dusting
boiling lard (or oil)
1 onion, chopped
¼ pound ham, diced (or ¼ pound butter for a fast-day dinner)

Directions

Dust the crabs with flour.
Heat the lard in a pot and add the chopped onion.
Once the onion is fragrant, add the crabs to the boiling lard.
Add the diced ham (or butter) and cook until everything is well combined.

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.

Crab + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together311 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Crab + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Crab + flourtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together384 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Onion + hamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,159 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs: Form the main body of the dish, releasing their flavor into the gravy as they cook.
Flour: Dusts the crabs so it can thicken the cooking fat and help build the gravy.
Lard: Carries the heat and adds richness, helping the onion and crabs brown in the pot.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the aromatic base of the dish.
Ham: Adds salty, smoky depth to the fat, or butter can be used instead for a richer finish.

The step that matters

Dusting the crabs with flour. Flour coats the crab surfaces so it can toast in the hot fat and thicken the liquid. Dusting unevenly leaves clumps or bare spots, which can scorch or leave the gravy lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, flour, ham):

Okrafits better
Mustardfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, flour, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Mutton Broth292 recipes

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To Make a Crab Gombo