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Stuffed Crabs

A dish of boiled crab meat mixed with onion, parsley, pepper, toast crumbs, and Worcestershire sauce, stuffed into crab shells and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By New Orleans Federation of Clubs · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffed Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil six large crabs, remove the meat, and chop it with a medium sized onion, parsley, red pepper, salt to taste, and a cupful of grated toast crumbs.

  2. Place the mixture in a frying pan into which a half teaspoon each of butter and lard has been made very hot.

  3. Cook until the particles of onion are cooked.

  4. Add two eggs that have been beaten to a froth, stirring constantly to distribute thoroughly.

  5. Remove from fire, add a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the empty crab shells with this mixture.

  2. Place a lump of butter on top of each, sprinkle lightly with toast crumbs, and bake about ten minutes just before ready to serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

309Calories
27 gProtein
19 gFat
8 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Crab100g cooked97
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Soy Sauce1 tbsp (15ml)9
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

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

By New Orleans Federation of Clubs. 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. See the original page.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 sweet, savoury flavour.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and set it as it cooks, giving a firmer texture.
Toast crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling brown lightly on top.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs. Stirring constantly keeps the eggs from clumping or scrambling in the hot pan, so they distribute evenly and bind the mixture smoothly.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, sauce, crab, tea, butter, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, sauce, crab, tea, butter, egg. 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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