Skip to main content
Main

Crab a LA Newburg

A creamy crab dish with egg yolks, whites, milk, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Crab a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a dish and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the mashed egg yolks, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Pour in the boiling milk and cook for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the crab or lobster meat and the chopped egg whites.

  2. When ready to serve, add the sherry or Madeira wine.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Crab + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Forms the rich base of the sauce and carries flavor through the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and add body and a creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.
Crab or lobster meat
Provides the main seafood flavor and tender texture.
Egg whites
Add soft, chopped texture throughout the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour in the boiling milk and cook for a few minutes. Flour needs heat to swell and thicken the liquid. Adding milk gradually while stirring and cooking long enough prevents lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

“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.

You might also like

Crab SoupCrab Soup39 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes