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Crab Croquettes

A fried dish of crab meat mixed with butter, milk, breadcrumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Crab Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pick the meat from the boiled crabs and chop it finely.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and melted butter.

  3. Moisten with rich milk or cream, then slightly thicken with bread or cracker crumbs.

  4. Add 2-3 well-beaten eggs to bind the mixture.

Form and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes, coat with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry delicately in boiling lard, preferably using a wire frying basket.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Meat + crabtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat of boiled crabs
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Thicken the moist mixture so it holds its shape when formed.
Rich milk or cream
Moistens the mixture, keeping the interior tender and creamy.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and set during cooking to hold the croquettes.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Fry delicately in boiling lard. The coating needs hot fat to brown and seal quickly, while the interior warms through. If the fat is too cool, croquettes absorb grease and may fall apart; handling gently prevents breakage as the egg coating sets.

“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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