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Deviled Crabs

A baked crab dish filled with crab meat, butter, mustard, cream, and breadcrumbs, topped with butter and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Boil half a dozen fresh crabs until cooked, then mince them.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced crab meat with two ounces of butter and one small teaspoonful of mustard powder; add cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Mix the crab mixture with an equal quantity of fine bread crumbs.

Make the filling

  1. Work the butter into a light cream, mix the mustard well with it, then stir in the crab mixture, a tablespoonful of cream, and crumbs very carefully, a handful at a time.

  2. Season the mixture to taste with cayenne pepper and salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the tops.

  3. Place three small pieces of butter on top of each filled shell.

  4. Brown the filled shells quickly in a hot oven.

  5. The shells will puff in baking and will be found very nice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

265Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
3 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Crab100g cooked97
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
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.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Mustard + crabtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 the dish its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and browns on the surface in the oven.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Absorb moisture and bind the crab mixture into a firm, spoonable filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Mustard powder
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that complements the crab.

The step that matters

Stirring in the crab and crumbs. Adding the crab and crumbs roughly or all at once can break the light butter cream and make the filling dense or greasy. Folding gently, a handful at a time, keeps the mixture airy and evenly seasoned, so the shells puff and brown well in the oven.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, crab, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, crab, 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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