Name: Crab Sauce
Ingredients: 1 fresh crab, cooked; ½ cup melted butter; cream from the crab

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crab Sauce

Ingredients

1 fresh crab, cooked
½ cup melted butter
cream from the crab

Directions

Remove the flesh from the crab and divide it into small flakes.
Melt the butter and flavor it as desired.
Mix the crab flakes into the melted butter.
Blend in the cream from the crab for a smoother sauce.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together812 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab: Provides the main flavor and the flaked meat that gives the sauce its body.
Melted butter: Carries the flavor and gives the sauce a rich, smooth texture.
Cream from the crab: Adds moisture and makes the sauce smoother.

“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.