Name: To Cook Crabs on the Shore
Ingredients: crabs; water; bread crumbs; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; vinegar

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Cook Crabs on the Shore

Ingredients

Directions

Set up a large iron pot over a fire and fill it with water. Bring the water to a boil.
Plunge live crabs into the boiling water. Discard any that show signs of weakness.
Boil the crabs until they turn bright red. Pour off the water and break open the shells.
Remove the fingers and sand-bags from the crabs. Keep the remaining meat, especially the fat.
Pack the crab meat into the upper shell with bread crumbs, butter, pepper, and vinegar.
Place the shell on hot embers and bake until heated through.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together812 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together387 recipes

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