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Stuffed Ceabs or Lobster

Stuffed crabs or lobster filled with seasoned meat, breadcrumbs, lemon, butter, and cream, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Ceabs or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the shells

  1. Boil the crabs or lobster.

  2. Pick out the meat, preserving the shells whole.

  3. Rub the shells with salad oil.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the meat with ¼ cup fine bread crumbs, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne pepper, grated lemon rind, lemon juice, butter, and a little sweet cream.

  2. If using lobster, rub the coral with the cream.

  3. Replace the mixture in the shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Dust lightly with bread crumbs.

  2. Dot with butter.

  3. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs or lobster
Provides the main meat that forms the body of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the juices and add body to the filling, and brown lightly on top.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Sweet cream
Moistens the filling so it stays tender rather than dry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich shellfish flavour.

The step that matters

Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven. Baking only until the topping is golden keeps the shellfish tender. Overbaking toughens the proteins in the meat and dries the filling, so watch the top closely.

“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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