Name: Crab Salad
Ingredients: crabs; oil; vinegar; pepper; coarse sea salt; white lettuce leaves

Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crab Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the crabs until cooked.
Remove the meat in large pieces.
Prepare a French salad dressing with oil, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Serve the crab on a bed of handsome white lettuce leaves.
Chill the salad in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.

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 + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Crab + lettucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together111 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together922 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).