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Deviled Crab Meat

A seasoned crab mixture made with butter, flour, milk, herbs, and spices, used to fill shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Crab Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a suitable kettle.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

  4. Add the salt, parsley, onions, and peppers.

Fill and preserve

  1. Incorporate enough crab meat to achieve the right consistency for filling shells.

  2. Pack the mixture into cans while hot and process as you would for crab meat.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + crabtop 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable sauce that holds the crab meat together.
Fresh milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a creamy texture.
Crab meat
Provides the main filling, with its flesh setting the texture once mixed into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the crab meat. The sauce must be thick enough to hold its shape when spooned into shells. Adding crab meat while the sauce is still hot can cause it to loosen, so the mixture should be checked for consistency before filling.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, parsley, onion, pepper, crab. 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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