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Crab Meat Glace

A chilled crab meat and rice mixture set with gelatin, tomatoes, and seasonings, served as a glaze or jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Crab Meat Glace

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Stew the tomatoes until soft and strain them.

  2. Boil the rice until very soft and shred the crab meat.

  3. Mix the strained tomatoes, rice, crab meat, gelatin, and seasoning.

Mold and dress

  1. Mold the mixture into individual forms.

  2. For the dressing, heat the milk and mix in cornstarch until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk, butter, and lemon or vinegar.

  4. Once cooled, add the chopped nuts, olives, and 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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 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

Crab meat
Provides the main flavor and protein body of the mold.
Boiled rice
Soft starch that bulks out the mixture and gives it a tender texture.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity, color, and moisture to the base once strained.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when molded.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk dressing as it heats.
Egg yolk
Enriches the dressing and adds richness and body.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk dressing. Cornstarch thickens only when the milk reaches a simmer and is stirred, so lumps form if it is added cold or unstirred. Removing the pan from heat before adding the egg yolk helps keep the yolk from scrambling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, meat, celery, rice, pepper, tomato, gelatin):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, celery, rice, pepper, tomato, gelatin. 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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