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Browned Crab

A crab stuffed with a mixture of crab meat, onion, parsley, mushrooms, truffles, butter, flour, salt, cayenne, broth, and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Browned Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter the inside of the crab shell.

  2. Mince the crab meat.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the minced crab meat with the fried onion, parsley, mushrooms, truffles, and butter.

  2. Add flour, coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and broth or gravy to the mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shell with the mixture.

  2. Top with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake until hot.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the filling and gives it its rich, savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling stay moist and encouraging browning on top.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds together rather than running out of the shell.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top as the crab bakes.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savour that complements the crab.

The step that matters

Bake until hot. The filling is already cooked through, so the goal is heating it and browning the crumbs. Overbaking dries the crab meat and toughens it, so watch for a golden top and a hot centre.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, parsley, mushroom, truffle, flour, pepper. 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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