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Crab Creole

A crab dish simmered with onions, tomatoes, chili, butter, cream, and thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Crab Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the crab, not too finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine onion, chili pepper, and water; boil briskly for 15 minutes.

  2. Add tomatoes and boil for another 10 minutes, or until soft.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the juice to the fire.

  4. Add butter, a little pepper, and salt.

  5. Thicken with corn starch, then add crab and cream.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on buttered toast.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavour that the sauce carries.
Corn starch
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture to the finished sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and body, breaking down into the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, rich flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with corn starch. Corn starch must be fully heated in liquid to swell and thicken; added to a sauce that is not hot enough it stays grainy, and boiling too long can thin it again. Stir the crab and cream in afterward so they are not overcooked.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, onion, pepper, butter, cream, corn):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, onion, pepper, butter, cream, corn. 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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