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Stuffed Crabs or Lobster

A dish of boiled crab or lobster meat stuffed back into shells with bread crumbs, spices, lemon, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Crabs or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the shells

  1. Boil the crabs or lobster, then pick out the meat, preserving the shells whole.

  2. Rub the shells with salad oil.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix the meat with ¼ cup fine bread crumbs, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne pepper, grated lemon rind, lemon juice, butter, and sweet cream.

  2. Replace the mixture in the shells, dust lightly with bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

  3. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon.

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.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs or lobster
Provides the main meat that forms the filling.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling so it stays tender when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the filling, giving it a light texture.

The step that matters

Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven. Browning the top needs enough heat and time to dry the surface and caramelise the crumbs and butter. Too little heat leaves the filling pale and wet, while too much can scorch the crumbs before the filling is heated through.

“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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