Skip to main content
Main

Crabmeat Au Gratin

A baked crabmeat dish topped with cheese, green onions, and hot sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Crabmeat Au Gratin

Oven450°F

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Place crabmeat in the bottom of a shallow baking dish.

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan. Remove the saucepan from heat; add flour and blend well.

  3. Add milk over low heat and stir until thick.

  4. Add cheese, green onions, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Cook until cheese melts.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the crabmeat.

  2. Bake at 450°F until the cheese is lightly browned.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

877Calories
30 gProtein
31 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Processed Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lump crabmeat
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its seafood flavor.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Milk
Liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the body of the sauce.
Processed cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top for richness and color.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the roux. Adding milk over low heat and stirring steadily lets the starch in the flour swell evenly. Heating too fast or stopping stirring can leave lumps or a sauce that does not thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cheese, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cheese, pepper, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes