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Scalloped Crab

A crab dish with crab meat mixed with bread crumbs, butter, spices, and vinegar, baked in shells and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Crab

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove all the contents from the crab and mix them together.

  2. Add the grated bread crumbs, butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and vinegar or lemon juice. Mix well.

Fill and bake

  1. Clean the bottom shell of the crab and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Pour any remaining mixture into scallop shells or small tins.

  3. Place the filled shells in a 350°F (175°C) oven until heated through and slightly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish with the crab shell in the center and scallop shells around, garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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 savory flavor of the filling.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds together when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and butter flavors.

The step that matters

Baking until just heated and lightly browned. The crab is already cooked, so the goal is only to heat it through and brown the top. Overbaking dries the crab meat and bread crumbs, making the filling tough.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, bread, butter, pepper, vinegar, parsley. 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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