Name: Mock Crab Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup grated cheese; 1 teaspoon anchovy paste; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon chopped olives; 4 teaspoons paprika; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon mustard; 2 tablespoons butter; thin slices of graham or white bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mock Crab Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, anchovy paste, salt, chopped olives, paprika, lemon juice, mustard, and butter until creamy.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between thin slices of graham or white bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese: Melts into the filling and gives it body and savoury richness.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the filling smooth and spreadable.
Anchovy paste: Adds concentrated savoury depth that stands in for the seafood flavour.
Olives: Contribute salty, briny notes that brighten the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, anchovy, olive, mustard, butter, bread):

Avocadofits better
Plumfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, anchovy, olive, mustard, butter, bread. 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.