Why it works: Crab and butter work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Devilled Crabs
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
Ensure no shell remains in the picked crabs.
Mix the chopped crabs with butter, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Clean the crab shells and place a small lump of butter in each.
Fill and bake
Fill the shells with the seasoned crab mixture.
Sprinkle with powdered cracker.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.
Serve
Serve hot or cold.
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.
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Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together812 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
-
Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together922 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Crabs
- Provide the main body and flavor of the filling.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the filling and keeps it from drying out.
- Powdered cracker
- Forms a crumb topping that promotes light browning on the surface.
The step that matters
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown. Baking only until the topping is light brown heats the filling through while keeping the butter from separating and the crab from becoming dry and tough.
“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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