Name: Stuffed Crabs with Mushrooms
Ingredients: 1 cupful of cream; 1 slice of onion; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 1 tablespoonful of flour; 1 teaspoonful of salt; 1/2 teaspoonful of paprica; 1/2 teaspoonful of lemon juice; one tablespoonful of butter; one slice of onion chopped fine; one tablespoonful of flour; one cupful of milk; 6 crabs; 4 hard-boiled eggs; cayenne

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together812 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Butter: Cooks with the flour to form a roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture that the flour thickens.
Hard-boiled eggs: Mashed yolks bind the filling and add richness.
Crabs: Provide the main meat of the filling.

The step that matters

Ensure the mixture is not very soft.. The filling must be thick enough to hold its shape in the shells. Too much liquid keeps it runny, while flour and egg yolk set into a firmer, cohesive mass as they are cooked and cooled.

Swap the onion

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

Asparagusfits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, lemon, milk, crab, egg. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Crab	100g cooked	97
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Cayenne	1 tsp (1.8g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Stuffed Crabs with Mushrooms