Name: Crayfish Au Gratin
Ingredients: crayfish tails; crayfish claws; beshemell sauce; anchovy essence; pepper; coarse sea salt; bread crumbs

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Crayfish Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Split the tails of the crayfish and remove the meat from the claws.
Cut the meat into small pieces.
Mix the crayfish meat with a little beshemell sauce, anchovy essence, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Fill the crayfish shells with the mixture.
Top with bread crumbs.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Crayfish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Crayfish + saucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).