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Deviled Crabs

Deviled Crabs are crab meat mixed with egg yolks, butter, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. Boil the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Chop the yolks and mix with butter.

  3. Add vinegar, mustard, coarse sea salt, and red pepper to the yolk mixture.

  4. Beat the 2 raw eggs. Add the beaten eggs and the chopped whites of the boiled eggs to the mixture.

  5. Mix in the crab meat thoroughly.

Fill and bake

  1. Wash the crab shells and butter them before filling with the mixture.

  2. If desired, sprinkle buttered bread crumbs on top; otherwise, add bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes or until browned.

  4. Serve immediately with a slice of lemon.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the dish its seafood flavour.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks add richness and a creamy texture, while chopped whites add bulk to the filling.
Raw eggs
Bind the mixture together and set during baking to hold the filling in shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and butter mixture.

The step that matters

Bake until browned, not dried out. Raw eggs set as they heat, so the filling needs enough time to firm up, but overbaking dries the crab meat and makes the filling tough. Watch for a golden top as the signal that it is done.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, egg, butter, vinegar, pepper, bread. 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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