Why it works: Lettuce and crab work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 111 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Crab Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Boil three dozen hard shelled crabs, let them cool gradually; remove the upper shell and the tail, break the remainder apart, and pick out the meat carefully. The large claws should not be forgotten, for they contain a dainty morsel; and the creamy fat attached to the upper shell should not be overlooked. Line the salad bowl with the small white leaves of two heads of lettuce, add the crab meat, pour over it a mayonnaise, garnish with crab claws, hard boiled eggs, and little moulds of cress leaves, which may be mixed with the salad when serving.
_The table is the only place where we do not get weary the first hour._
--+Brillat-Savarin.+
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Crab | 100g cooked | 97 |
| Lettuce | 1 cup shredded (36g) | 5 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Lettuce + crabtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together111 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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