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Devilled CraBS

Deviled crabs are crab meat seasoned with onion, cracker crumbs, spices, and butter, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled CraBS

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the cooked crabs and set aside.

  2. Place the shells and bony bits in a bowl and cover with hot water.

Make the filling

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the crab meat, onion, cracker crumbs, black pepper, red pepper, coarse sea salt, butter, and mustard. Mix well.

  2. Add a mixture of the hot water from the shells and half and half until the meat is moist.

  3. Fill the crab shells with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Sift powdered crackers over the tops and place a bit of butter on each.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown and serve immediately.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Cooked crab meat
Provides the main filling and savory seafood flavor of the dish.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the tops brown.
Half and half
Adds moisture and creaminess to keep the filling tender after baking.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the crab.

The step that matters

Moisten the filling to the right consistency. Adding too little liquid leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much makes it loose and soggy. Cracker crumbs absorb liquid as they sit, so the filling should be moist but still hold its shape in the shells.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, pepper, butter, mustard. 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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