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Creamed Crab Meat

A creamy crab dish served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Creamed Crab Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk and cream, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the crabmeat and a little cayenne pepper.

  2. Heat thoroughly, then add the lemon juice and salt to taste.

  3. Serve hot on toast and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, creamy sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Crabmeat
Provides the main flavour and protein of the dish, folded into the warm sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and cream. Adding liquid gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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