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Crab Laillee

A crab stew made with tomato paste, lard, flour, onions, garlic, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Crab Laillee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crabs

  1. Scald, shell, and clean the crabs, reserving only the bodies and large claws; crack the claws with a nutcracker.

  2. Save all fat, eggs, and liquid from the shells.

Make the roux and base

  1. Heat lard and olive oil in a deep skillet.

  2. Fry crab bodies and claws until light golden brown.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add flour to the hot grease and brown lightly.

  5. Cook slowly to avoid darkening the flour.

  6. Add chopped onions, garlic, and herb bouquet.

  7. Stir in tomato paste.

  8. Cook for a few minutes.

  9. Pour in enough water to fill the pot halfway and prevent burning.

  10. Let it boil hard for a few minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the crabs, eggs, fat, and season with the herb bouquet.

  2. Optionally, add 2-3 whole cloves for extra flavor.

  3. Season with salt and red pepper to taste, ensuring the dish is piquant.

  4. Let it simmer slowly, adding water as needed to keep the crabs covered.

  5. When cooked, the gravy should be smooth and creamy, resembling crushed strawberry in color.

  6. Serve with rice.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned in the hot fat to form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Lard
Provides fat for frying and browning the crabs and the roux.
Tomato paste
Adds concentrated tomato flavor and deepens the color of the gravy.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, building the base flavor of the gravy.
Blue crabs
Provide the main meat and flavor, with bodies and claws simmered into the gravy.
Eggs (in the method)
Added with the crabs to enrich the gravy and give it a creamy body.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour browned too fast in hot fat can scorch and turn bitter, so cooking slowly keeps the roux nutty and lightly coloured. Scorched flour also spoils the flavour of the whole gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, tomato, olive, flour, garlic, pepper):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, tomato, olive, flour, garlic, 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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