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Crab Soup

A soup made from crab meat, stock, bread crumbs, onion, parsley, butter, flour, cream, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Crab Soup

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove meat from crabs, and chop finely.

Make the soup

  1. Add stock, bread crumbs, onion, and parsley, and simmer twenty minutes.

  2. Rub through a sieve, bind with butter and flour cooked together, then add cream and seasonings.

Serve

  1. Serve with Pulled Bread.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

756Calories
34 gProtein
20 gFat
107 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Crab100g cooked97
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
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 Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  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
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup.
Stale bread crumbs
Thicken the stock and give the soup a smooth, substantial texture.
Butter and flour
Cooked together into a roux that binds the soup and thickens it.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Binding with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with the butter before it goes in, otherwise it tastes raw and clumps. Cooking it briefly lets the starch thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, bread, onion, butter, flour, cream. 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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