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Crab Creole

A buttery crab stew served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Crab Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rub a stewpan with the garlic clove.

  2. In the stewpan, combine the chopped onions and chili peppers with the butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Stew slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the peeled tomato and stew for another 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the flour and milk, adjusting the thickness as needed.

  2. Add the shredded crab meat and heat until hot.

  3. Serve immediately on buttered toast.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and release sweetness as they stew slowly in butter, building the base flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the vegetables stew.
Tomato
Adds moisture and acidity that give the sauce its body and bright flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that clings to the crab meat.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid of the sauce, with fat that softens the chili heat.
Crab meat
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk. Flour must be stirred in evenly before the liquid goes in, or it forms lumps instead of a smooth sauce. Adjusting thickness now matters because the sauce will thicken slightly as it heats.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, onion, pepper, butter, tomato, flour, milk):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, onion, pepper, butter, tomato, flour, milk. 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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