Name: Soft-shell Crab Salad
Ingredients: soft-shell crabs; lettuce; mayonnaise or tartare sauce

Why it works: Crab and sauce work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soft-shell Crab Salad

Ingredients

soft-shell crabs
lettuce
mayonnaise or tartare sauce

Directions

Broil or fry the soft-shell crabs until cooked.
Let the crabs cool.
Serve the crabs on a bed of lettuce.
Top with mayonnaise or tartare sauce.

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.

Crab + saucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together238 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Crab + lettucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together111 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).