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Deviled Crab. — Mrs. J. O. Derr

Deviled crab is a baked crab shell filled with crab meat, bread, lemon, butter, cream, onion, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Deviled Crab. — Mrs. J. O. Derr

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the crab shell thoroughly.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix crab meat, crumbled bread or crackers, lemon juice, butter, cream or milk, onion, red pepper, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Fill the cleaned crab shell with the mixture.

  3. Slice 1 lemon over the top.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 26 minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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 savoury filling and flavour of the dish.
Crumbled bread or crackers
Soaks up cream and juices, giving the filling body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Thin cream or milk
Keeps the filling moist so it stays tender rather than drying out in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and cream.

The step that matters

Fill the shell evenly and bake for the full time. Crab filling is moist and delicate; packing it unevenly or underbaking leaves cold, loose centres, while overbaking dries the cream and bread, making the filling tough.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, bread, butter, cream, onion, 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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