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Deviled Crabs

A baked or fried crab filling made with butter, flour, cream, onion, nutmeg, salt, cayenne, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

fills 8 crab shells
Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir in the flour to prevent burning.

  2. Add the cream, mashed onion, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper, stirring well.

  3. Incorporate the crab meat and raw eggs, mixing thoroughly until the mixture thickens, about a few minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture onto a flat dish and let it cool.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shells with the mixture, brush with egg, and cover with breadcrumbs.

  2. Place the filled shells in a baking pan, top each with a small lump of butter.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until light brown, or fry in hot lard.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the filling and, with the breadcrumbs, helps the top turn golden brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream base so the filling holds together.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and creamy.
Crab meat
Provides the main filling and its savoury flavour.
Raw eggs
Bind the filling and set it as it heats, giving it structure.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the filling in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing in the raw eggs. Raw egg sets when heated, so the mixture must be stirred thoroughly over heat until it thickens. Undercooked egg leaves the filling loose and runny, while overheating can make it curdle and grainy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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