Name: Mock Crab Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup grated cheese; 1 tablespoon chopped olives; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon paprika; 2 tablespoons creamed butter; ¼ teaspoon mustard; 1 teaspoon anchovy paste

Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mock Crab Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine grated cheese, chopped olives, salt, lemon juice, paprika, creamed butter, mustard, and anchovy paste. Mix until well blended.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on bread to make sandwiches.

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.

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).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,816 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

Grated cheese: Melts and binds the filling, giving it body and a savoury richness.
Creamed butter: Adds fat that softens the filling and helps it spread smoothly on bread.
Anchovy paste: Contributes a concentrated salty, savoury depth to the filling.
Chopped olives: Add briny flavour and a bit of texture to the filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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