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Dessert

To Dbess Crab

A crab dish seasoned with vinegar, oil, salt, white pepper, cayenne, and garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Dbess Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Empty the crab shells.

Make the dish

  1. Thoroughly mix the crab meat with vinegar, oil, salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Place the mixture back into the large shell.

  3. Garnish with slices of lemon and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Crab + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together387 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor of the dish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the crab meat and balances its richness.
Oil
Adds fat and moisture, helping the crab meat feel tender and cohesive.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, vinegar, lemon, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, vinegar, lemon, parsley. 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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