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Creamed Crab Meat

A creamy crab dish made with butter, crab meat, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, cream, salt, dry mustard, and cayenne or Tabasco.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Crab Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the crab meat, bread crumbs, and beaten egg yolks; stir well.

  3. Cook until it boils, then stir in the cream, salt, dry mustard, and cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Crab + creamtop 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

Crab meat
Provides the main protein and flavour of the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they cook and add richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the mixture body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, producing a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the mixture feel rich and smooth.

The step that matters

Cook until it boils, then stir in the cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if overcooked, so the mixture should be heated gently and stirred to keep it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, crab, meat, bread, egg, cream, pepper. 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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