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Deviled Crabs

A baked crab dish with butter, mustard, cayenne, salt, breadcrumbs, and cream.

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 ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Mix minced crab meat with an equal quantity of fine bread crumbs in a bowl.

  2. Cream butter until light, then mix mustard into the butter.

  3. Stir in the crab mixture.

  4. Add a tablespoon of cream.

  5. Add breadcrumbs a handful at a time.

  6. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and place three small pieces of butter on top.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Provides the main body and seafood flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the filling brown in the oven.
Fine bread crumbs
Bind the crab and absorb moisture, giving the filling a firmer texture.
Mustard powder
Adds a sharp, pungent note that balances the richness of the butter.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding breadcrumbs gradually. Breadcrumbs absorb liquid from the crab and butter. Adding them a handful at a time lets you judge the texture, so the filling stays moist but holds its shape rather than becoming stiff or wet.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, pepper, bread, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, pepper, bread, cream. 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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