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Crab, Devilled

A crab dish flavored with butter, cayenne, curry, Worcestershire, anchovy sauce, and béchamel, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Crab, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, salt, curry powder, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovy sauce.

  3. Stir in the white sauce and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the crab meat and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with cooked rice.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + crabtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Meat + crabtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Sauce + crabtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 protein and flavor, forming the body of the filling.
White sauce (béchamel)
Binds the filling and adds creamy moisture so it holds together and stays soft.
Butter
Carries the spices and adds rich flavor as the base of the filling.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the white sauce and bring to a boil. Once the white sauce is added, the mixture can scorch or thicken unevenly if left unattended on heat. Stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth and evenly heated before the crab goes in.

“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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