Name: Crabs, Style of Saint Lawrence
Ingredients: ½ pound shelled crabs; ½ pint white stock; 1 tablespoon sherry or lemon juice; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon grated cheese; slices of toast; additional cheese for topping

Why it works: Crab and sherry work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 67 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Crabs, Style of Saint Lawrence

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

Chop the crabs finely.
In a pan, combine crabs, white stock, sherry or lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
Cook for 10 minutes.

Assemble and brown

Pour the mixture over slices of toast.
Top with more cheese.
Brown under a salamander or in a very hot oven.

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 + sherrytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together67 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together922 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Shelled crabs: Provide the main protein and flavour of the topping.
White stock: Adds moisture and savoury depth, letting the crab mixture cook into a spoonable topping.
Cheese: Melts and browns on top, adding richness and a golden crust.
Sherry or lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the crab.

The step that matters

Browning under the salamander or in a very hot oven. The topping needs a short, intense heat so the cheese browns before the moist crab mixture soaks into the toast and makes it soggy. Watch closely, since the surface can scorch quickly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Crabs, Style of Saint Lawrence