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Soft Crabs Fried

Fried soft crabs seasoned with salt and cayenne, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, cooked in butter and lard.

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

Soft Crabs Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the soft crabs and remove the sand-bag and spongy substance.

  2. Wash the crabs well and wipe them dry.

  3. Season the crabs inside and out with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

Fry

  1. Close the crabs and fry them in a mixture of fresh butter and lard until light brown.

  2. Dip the seasoned crabs in beaten egg.

  3. Coat the crabs with grated bread or finely-rolled and sifted crackers.

  4. Fry the coated crabs in deep lard.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Crab + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together387 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft crabs
Provide the tender, fully edible body that is the main component of the dish.
Egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs adhere to the crabs during frying.
Grated bread or crackers
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns during frying.
Fresh butter and lard
Conduct heat for frying and add richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the coated crabs in deep lard. Frying at a steady high heat sets the coating quickly, so it turns crisp and golden before the crab overcooks. Too cool a fat lets the coating absorb oil and turn greasy and loose.

“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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