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Bisque of Crabs

A creamy crab bisque made with crab meat, vegetables, wine, stock, béchamel, and served with fried bread crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bisque of Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crabs

  1. Soak crabs in cold water with salt for 1 hour.

  2. Remove shells and lungs from crabs.

  3. Wash the crabs in warm water and drain.

Make the broth

  1. Fry carrot and onion in butter in a large saucepan.

  2. Add parsley, thyme, bay leaf, white wine, and white stock.

  3. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove crabs, strain the broth.

  5. Let the broth sit for 20 minutes.

Finish the bisque

  1. Pound crabs to a paste with cooked rice and some cooking juice.

  2. Strain the paste through a sieve.

  3. Mix the strained paste with béchamel sauce.

  4. Season with salt and red pepper.

  5. Heat gently without boiling.

  6. Add butter until melted.

  7. Serve with fried bread crusts.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main flavour and the body of the bisque when pounded into the paste.
Cooked rice
Thickens the crab paste and gives the bisque a smooth, full texture.
Béchamel sauce
Adds a creamy base that gives the bisque richness and a silky body.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and is stirred in at the end for a glossy finish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the broth, lifting the flavour of the shellfish.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling a cream-based sauce can cause the béchamel to separate or turn grainy, and can make the butter break. Gentle heat keeps the bisque smooth and glossy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, carrot, butter, parsley, thyme, white wine, rice):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, carrot, butter, parsley, thyme, white wine, rice. 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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