Name: Blanche Kammerer
Ingredients: one tablespoon of flour; one cup milk; one pint of crabmeat; a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan; one-fourth lemon; cayenne; pepper; salt; parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Blanche Kammerer

Ingredients

Directions

CREAMED CRAB MEAT— Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, add one tablespoon of flour and stir until smooth, then add one cup milk and one-half cup cream, stirring constantly. When the mixture has thickened add one pint of crabmeat and a little cayenne pepper. Heat thoroughly, add the juice of one-fourth lemon, and salt to taste. Serve hot on toast. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

731Calories

22 gProtein

21 gFat

114 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 8 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Cayenne	1 tsp (1.8g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, lemon, pepper):

Parsleythe original
Cardamomfits about as well
Cinnamonfits about as well
Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.