Name: Crab Salad
Ingredients: meat from 1 boiled crab; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 tablespoon oil; sprigs of parsley for garnish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Crab Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the meat from the boiled crab and cut it into dice.

Season and serve

Mix the crab meat with salt, cayenne pepper, vinegar, and oil.
Replace the mixture in the crab shell.
Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Meat + crabtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together922 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat: Forms the main body of the salad and provides its savory flavor.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the crab and balances the richness of the meat.
Oil: Adds fat that coats the crab meat and gives it a smoother mouthfeel.