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Crab Croquettes

A fried patty made from boiled crab meat mixed with seasonings, milk, breadcrumbs, and eggs.

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 ↓

Crab Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

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

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

  3. Moisten the mixture with rich milk or cream.

  4. Stiffen the mixture slightly with bread or cracker crumbs.

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

Form and fry

  1. Form the croquettes, then coat them in egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes 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
Forms the main body and flavour of the filling.
Rich milk or cream
Adds moisture so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorbs liquid and stiffens the filling so it holds its shape.
2 to 3 eggs
Bind the filling and set when cooked, holding the croquettes together.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes delicately in boiling lard. The egg and crumb coating sets quickly in hot fat, but a violently boiling pan can burst the coating or split the filling before the centre warms through. Keeping the fat steadily hot and lowering the croquettes gently helps them brown evenly and stay intact.

“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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