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Cream of Crab

A creamy crab soup made with butter, flour, milk, cayenne, salt, mace, crab meat, cream, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan until browned.

  2. Stir in the flour until thick.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the milk, cayenne, salt, and mace; mix well.

  2. Incorporate the crab meat and bring to a boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Finally, stir in the cream and parsley, then serve.

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

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

  2. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns slightly and adds rich flavour to the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the soup.
Crab meat
Provides the main flavour and texture of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the flour and butter. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the melted butter before the milk is added. Stirring until thick prevents lumps and lets the starch thicken the liquid evenly when it is later heated.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, crab, meat, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, crab, meat, cream. 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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