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Cheese, Salad, or Mock Crab

A mock crab made from pickled shrimps, cheese, salad oil, cayenne pepper, salt, sugar, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cheese, Salad, or Mock Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the shrimps.

  2. Grate the cheese.

  3. Combine the cheese and shrimps with the salad oil, cayenne pepper, salt, white sugar, and made mustard.

Mix and rest

  1. Add the vinegar last and mix well.

  2. Let the mixture stand for ten minutes.

  3. Stir well for a minute and a half.

Serve

  1. Serve in a glass dish or a clean crab shell, garnished with lemon.

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.

  1. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Shrimp + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled shrimps
Provide the main seafood flavor and the chunky, crab-like texture of the dish.
Good old cheese
Adds richness and body, binding the mixture into a creamy, spreadable texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat, making the mixture smoother and carrying the seasonings.
Celery or onion vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that brightens the rich cheese and shrimp.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that complements the cheese and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir well for a minute and a half. Stirring works the cheese and oil into the shrimp so the mixture becomes cohesive and evenly seasoned. Under-mixing leaves streaks of cheese and uneven texture, while the ten-minute rest lets the acid and seasonings soften and blend.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, cheese, pepper, sugar, mustard):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, cheese, pepper, sugar, mustard. 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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