Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Crab Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crab
Boil the crabs in salted water for 30 minutes.
Let the crabs cool.
Pick out the meat from the crabs.
Make the dressing
Beat the egg yolks and add pepper, salt, and mustard. Mix well.
Slowly add the olive oil to the mixture until it thickens.
If the mixture is too thick, add a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar.
Carefully pour the oil to avoid curdling.
Assemble and serve
Combine the crab meat with the mayonnaise dressing.
Garnish a dish with lettuce leaves or watercress.
Place the crab mixture in the center.
Serve.
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.
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Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,356 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,922 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,950 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Crabs
- Provide the main meat that forms the body of the salad.
- Egg yolks
- Emulsify the oil with the seasonings to form a thick, creamy dressing.
- Olive oil
- Adds richness and body as it emulsifies into the egg yolk base.
- Mustard
- Helps stabilise the emulsion so the dressing holds together.
- Lemon juice or vinegar
- Adds acidity to brighten the dressing and loosen it if too thick.
The step that matters
Slowly add the olive oil. Adding oil too quickly to egg yolks can break the emulsion, so the dressing curdles instead of thickening. Adding it slowly, in a thin stream, lets the yolk coat each droplet and keeps the sauce smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, egg, pepper, mustard, olive, lettuce):
- Avocadofits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Limefits about as well
- Cherryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against crab, egg, pepper, mustard, olive, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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