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Dressed Crab

Crab meat mixed with breadcrumbs, oil, vinegar, and mustard, served in shells on greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dressed Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Remove the meat from the crab shell and claws.

  2. Cut the solid parts into small pieces.

  3. Dry the soft part.

  4. Wash the crab shells.

  5. Dry the crab shells.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix the dry part with bread crumbs, oil, vinegar, and mustard.

  2. Serve the meat in the shells placed on a bed of greens.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + crabtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

  4. Crab + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Crab + lettucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 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

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its sweet, delicate flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the dressing and give the mixture a slightly thicker body.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavor through the meat, keeping it moist.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the crab.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps oil and vinegar blend into the dressing.

The step that matters

Drying the meat and shells. Excess water from the crab would thin the dressing and make it watery, so the meat and shells should be dried before mixing and serving.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, crab, bread, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Lettucethe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, crab, bread, vinegar, mustard. 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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