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Soup

Bisque of Crab

A creamy crab soup made with onion, chili pepper, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bisque of Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the onion and chili pepper in 1 cup of water for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the onion and pepper from the water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the shredded crab meat and milk to the pot.

  2. Thicken the mixture with 1 tablespoon of flour moistened with a little milk.

  3. Season with salt and add a small piece of butter.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Meat + crabtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

  3. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 seafood flavor and tender, flaky texture.
Milk
Adds creamy body and a mild, rounded sweetness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the bisque body.
Onion
Builds a sweet, aromatic base as it softens in the water.
Chili pepper
Contributes gentle heat and aroma that lift the crab flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour clumps if added dry to hot liquid. Moistening it with a little milk first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the mixture thickens smoothly as it heats.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, meat, crab, milk, flour, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat, crab, milk, flour, butter. 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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