Skip to main content
Main

Crab Salad, with Mayonnaise in Tomato Cups

A salad of crab meat mixed with mayonnaise, served in hollowed tomato cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crab Salad, with Mayonnaise in Tomato Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and scoop out the insides.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix crab meat with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed tomatoes with the crab mixture.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves.

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.

  1. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Crab + lettucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 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 meat
Forms the main body of the salad filling and provides its flavor.
Mayonnaise
Binds the crab meat and adds moisture and richness to the filling.
Tomatoes
Serve as edible cups that hold the filling and add juiciness and acidity.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, meat, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes