Name: Crabs and Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 pound finely chopped crab meat; ½ pint tomato sauce; ½ pound bread crumbs; parsley; pepper; coarse sea salt; rind of 1 lemon; juice of 1 lemon; ⅓ cup sherry

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Crabs and Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Mix crab meat, tomato sauce, bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sherry in a bowl, stirring the mixture thoroughly.

Bake and serve

Heat the mixture in a 400°F (200°C) oven until very hot.
Serve with fried potatoes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat: Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savoury flavour.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and help bind the mixture into a moist, cohesive texture.
Tomato sauce: Adds moisture and acidity, keeping the mixture from drying out in the oven.
Sherry: Adds aromatic depth and a mild sweetness to the mixture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, meat, tomato, sauce, bread, parsley, pepper):

Lemonthe original
Avocadofits about as well
Limefits about as well
Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, tomato, sauce, bread, parsley, pepper. 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.