Skip to main content
Main

Crab, Dressed

Crab, Dressed is a dish of crab meat seasoned with butter, oil, vinegar, breadcrumbs, and served in its shell.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Crab, Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Break off the claws and feelers of the crab and remove all the flesh, picking it carefully from the bony center.

  2. Separate the soft dark flesh from the white flesh and shred the white with a fork.

  3. Wash the empty shell and rub it with warmed butter to polish.

  4. Chip off the under portion of the shell to create a neat edge.

Dress and assemble

  1. Mix the soft dark flesh with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs.

  2. Toss the white meat in oil, pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Fill the shell alternately with the two mixtures, piling them high in the center.

  4. Decorate with lines of parsley, chopped egg white, and powdered yolk.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 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
Provides the main meat, with dark and white flesh giving two contrasting textures.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid in the dark meat mixture, helping it hold its shape when piled.
Butter
Warmed and rubbed on the shell, it adds a glossy finish and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the crab meat.
Oil
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the crab meat tender and coated.

The step that matters

Piling the filling high in the shell. Packing the two mixtures loosely and piling them in the center keeps the dressing light and gives the crab a neat, mounded shape when served.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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

You might also like

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