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Crab Soup

A soup made from chicken stock, fresh crabs, butter, cream, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Crab Soup

Why it works: Milk and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the full-grown fat chicken into small pieces and put it, bones and all, into a gallon of cold water.

  2. Let it boil slowly until reduced to 2 quarts.

  3. Then strain it and return it to the pot, adding 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper and a pod of red pepper.

Finish the soup

  1. Pick all the meat from 2 dozen large fresh crabs carefully and add it to the soup.

  2. Let it boil up and add ½ lb of sweet butter rubbed with a tablespoon of flour.

  3. When it comes to a boil again, add 1 pint of sweet cream and 1 pint of milk.

  4. Let it boil once and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

826Calories
53 gProtein
18 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
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 Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Crabs (in the method)
Provide the main meat and sweet flavour of the soup.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the soup.
Milk
Dilutes and mellows the broth while adding creamy body.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and richness, and the flour helps thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when rubbed into the butter before adding.
Chicken
Gives the broth its body and savoury meaty flavour as it simmers with the bones.

The step that matters

Reducing the chicken broth to 2 quarts. Simmering slowly concentrates flavour and gelatin from the bones; boiling too hard can make the broth cloudy and over-reduced before the crab and dairy go in.

“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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