Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Crabs Farcies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Remove all the meat from the boiled crab and chop it into very small pieces.
Mix the crab meat with slightly more than ¼ cup of bread crumbs, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter.
Stuff and bake
Return the mixture to the crab shell and squeeze lemon juice over it.
Top with a thick layer of bread crumbs and place small bits of butter on top.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crumbs are browned.
Serve
Serve on a napkin garnished with lemon and parsley.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Crab + meattop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together448 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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 filling, providing the dish's sweet, delicate flavor and texture.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and bind the crab meat, keeping the filling from becoming watery.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until the crumbs are browned. Baking at high heat dries the surface and drives browning reactions in the crumbs and butter, which gives color and flavor. Underbaking leaves the filling soft and pale, while overbaking can dry the crab meat.
“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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