Name: Fried Green Tomato and Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Salad
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 15 min
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients: 6 green tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick; 2 cups rice wine vinegar; ½ cup water; ¼ cup basil, chopped; 2 tablespoons sugar; 3 cups flour; 2 cups buttermilk mixed with 5 whole eggs; 4 cups freshly ground Billy Bread crumbs (or Panko [Japanese style]); 1 cup kosher salt (*I used about 1/4 cup Kosher salt); 1/4 cup fresh ground white pepper; 1 cup sour cream; 1/2 cup buttermilk; 1 tbsp fresh garlic minced super fine; 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar; 1 tsp Worchestershire; 1/8 cup fresh basil chopped fine; 1/8 cup chives minced; 1/2 cup crumbled Maytag blue cheese; 2 cups canola oil; 12 inch high walled skillet; 4 cups fresh sunflower shoots or any nice salad greens (* I used local micro greens); 1 pound jumbo lump blue crab (picked over for shell fragments ); 1 cup toasted pecans; 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil; Mosto lemon oil (* I used Meyer Lemon infused Olive Oil); Banyuls vinegar (* I used Champagne Vinegar)

Why it works: Tomato and basil are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,979 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

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.

Tomato + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,979 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Basil + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,038 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice wine, vinegar, basil, sugar, flour, buttermilk, egg):

Chivefits better
Cucumberfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice wine, vinegar, basil, sugar, flour, buttermilk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Pecans	1 oz (28g / ~19 halves)	196
Sunflower	1 oz (28g) hulled	165
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Blue Cheese	1 oz (28g)	100
Blue Crab	100g cooked	97
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
White Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Basil	5 leaves fresh (2.5g)	1
Chive	1 tbsp (3g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0
Salad	not in our table	0
Champagne	not in our table	0

Fried Green Tomato and Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Salad