Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Crabs

A dish of boiled crabs filled with a butter, flour, cream, and mushroom sauce, topped with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crabs

  1. Plunge crabs into boiling water and cook for 15-20 minutes below boiling point.

  2. Transfer crabs to cold water, then remove claws and legs using a twisting motion.

  3. Remove the apron and break the body from the shell, saving the stomach and liver.

  4. Open the body and remove the white meat with your fingers, also extracting meat from claws and legs if large enough.

  5. Scrub the upper shell with a brush and dry it.

Make the filling

  1. Make a sauce by melting butter, adding flour, salt, mustard, and cream.

  2. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

  3. Fill the crab shells with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Top with a mixture of butter and breadcrumbs.

  2. Place in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until the crumbs are browned.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 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 filling and gives the dish its savoury flavour.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, melted with breadcrumbs, helps the topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and cream into a smooth sauce that binds the filling.
Thin cream
Adds moisture and richness, turning the filling into a creamy sauce.
Hard-cooked eggs
Adds body and softness to the filling as it sets with the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Place in a hot oven until the crumbs are browned. Too little heat or too long a bake can dry the filling or scorch the crumbs before the topping is evenly golden. Watch the crumbs rather than the clock.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, sauce, mushroom, crab, mustard):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, sauce, mushroom, crab, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesCrab SoupCrab Soup39 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes