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Crab Soup

A soup made with crabs, milk, cream, butter, onions, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Crab Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, combine the milk and cream and bring to a boil.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub the butter with a scant tablespoon of flour and mix in the chopped onions.

  3. Add the butter mixture to the boiling milk and cream.

  4. Once boiling, add the crab meat and paprika, and boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Before removing from heat, add salt to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Crab + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together311 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the soup with fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken it.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a mild, creamy body.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer texture and smoother mouthfeel.
Crab
Provides the main flavour and tender meat that defines the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter mixture to the boiling milk and cream. Flour rubbed into butter should be fully mixed in before it goes into the hot liquid, and the soup should be stirred as it thickens, so that lumps do not form and the texture stays smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, milk, cream, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, milk, cream, butter. 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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