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Stewed Crabs

A dish of crab meat simmered with wine, spices, bread crumbs, and egg yolks, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Remove the meat from the body and claws of the crabs, ensuring no spongy parts or shell remain.

Make the stew

  1. In a stew pan, combine the crab meat, white wine, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Heat the mixture, then stir in the bread crumbs, beaten egg yolks, and vinegar.

Serve

  1. Prepare toasted slices and place them on a plate.

  2. Pour the crab mixture over the slices and 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main meat that forms the body of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the stew and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the stew into a softer, spoonable texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich crab flavour.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture, then stir in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the mixture is too hot or they are added to boiling liquid. Keep the heat moderate and stir steadily so the stew becomes smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, white wine, pepper, bread, egg, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, white wine, pepper, bread, egg, vinegar. 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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