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Crab

Baked crab in its shell topped with crackers, mushroom ketchup, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Crab

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble in the shell

  1. In the empty crab shell, layer the soft part of the crab meat.

  2. Add a layer of grated crackers or biscuits.

  3. Top with the fleshy part of the crab and pour mushroom ketchup over it.

  4. Sprinkle chopped egg yolks, salt, pepper, and cayenne on top.

  5. Cover with the remaining soft part of the crab meat.

  6. Smooth the top with a wooden spoon or knife.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

  2. Bake in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes until hot.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Crab + meattop 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. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 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
Provides the main savoury body and flavour of the dish.
Grated crackers or biscuits
Absorbs moisture and adds bulk so the filling holds together.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling into a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the topping.

The step that matters

Bake until hot. The filling is already cooked, so it only needs heating through. Over-baking can dry out the crab meat and toughen the egg yolks, while underbaking leaves the centre cool.

“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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