Name: Fried Soft Shell Crabs
Ingredients: soft shell crabs; coarse sea salt; black pepper; bread crumbs; 1 egg; deep frying oil

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Soft Shell Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the crabs by removing the spongy substance under the tapering points on each side of the back shell and the pointed piece on the lower part of the under shell.
Sprinkle the crabs with salt and pepper.
Dip the crabs in bread crumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in bread crumbs.
Fry the crabs in deep oil until golden brown, turning them while frying.
Drain on brown paper.

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.

Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together922 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Crab + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together387 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Crab + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together467 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).