Name: Crab or Oyster Omelet
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons crab meat; 6 oysters, blanched, gills removed, and cut into quarters

Why it works: Crab and meat work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 448 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Crab or Oyster Omelet

Ingredients

2 tablespoons crab meat
6 oysters, blanched, gills removed, and cut into quarters

Directions

Prepare a savory omelet base.
For crab omelet, add 2 tablespoons of crab meat.
For oyster omelet, add 6 blanched oysters cut into quarters.
Cook until the omelet is set and serve immediately.

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 + meattop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Crab + oystertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together95 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Meat + oystertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together536 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).