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Browned Crab

A crab stuffed with a mixture of crab meat, onion, parsley, mushrooms, truffles, butter, flour, salt, cayenne, broth, and topped with breadcrumbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Browned Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter the inside of the crab shell.

Make the filling

  1. Mince the crab meat and mix it with the fried onion, parsley, mushrooms, truffles, and butter.

  2. Add flour, coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and broth or gravy to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the crab shell with the mixture and top with bread crumbs.

  2. Bake until hot and browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and provides the savory base.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds together rather than running out of the shell.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust on top that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which carries flavor and helps the top brown.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until hot and browned. The filling must be heated through while the bread crumbs brown. Stopping early leaves the centre cold, while over-baking dries the crab meat and burns the crumbs.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, parsley, mushroom, truffle, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, parsley, mushroom, truffle, flour, pepper. 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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