Name: Shrimp and Lobster Sandwich
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked shrimp, chopped fine; 1 cup celery, chopped fine; 1 teaspoon vinegar; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; ½ cup mayonnaise; Bread, well buttered; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Shrimp and Lobster Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the chopped shrimp, chopped celery, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Mix in the mayonnaise until well combined.
Butter the bread and place a leaf of lettuce on each slice.
Spread the shrimp mixture on the lettuce.
Cut into sandwiches; this recipe makes thirty-six sandwiches.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, celery, vinegar, pepper, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Tomatofits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, celery, vinegar, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.