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Crab Meat

A creamy crab meat sauce made with cheese, butter, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Crab Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the crab meat and remove any bones as it heats.

  3. Stir in the cheese and pimentos until the cheese melts.

  4. Mix in the milk and beaten eggs.

  5. Season with salt and red pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately when the cream sauce thickens.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy base that gives the sauce its body and flavor.
Eggs
Coagulate with gentle heat, thickening the sauce and giving it a rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the sauce stay smooth as it heats.
Crab meat
Provides the main flavor and tender, flaky texture of the sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the cheese into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Serve immediately when the cream sauce thickens. Egg-thickened sauces keep setting with heat, so they can turn grainy or stiff if held too long. Serving as soon as it thickens keeps the texture smooth.

“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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