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

Directions

Prepare the crabs for stewing.
Sprinkle the crabs well with flour.
Heat the lard in a pot until boiling and infused with onion flavor.
Add the floured crabs to the boiling lard.
Add the bits of ham (or butter for a Fast-Day dinner).
Follow the directions for chicken gombo, omitting the oysters.

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).