Skip to main content
Main

Crab Pie or Deviled Crabs

A baked crab pie made with boiled crab meat, butter, flour, milk, cream, anchovy sauce, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

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

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce 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 Pie or Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the crab

  1. Boil the crabs in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Pick the meat from the shells, keeping the shells intact for baking.

  3. Cut the crab meat into irregular pieces and set aside.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 ounces of butter, then add flour, milk, and cream; boil for 2 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and mix in anchovy sauce, pepper, salt, and crab meat.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shells with the mixture, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and dot with remaining butter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Crab + anchovytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together79 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provides the main meat and the sweet, savoury flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the top turn golden as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth, spoonable sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a soft, creamy body.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the sauce silkier and more tender in the mouth.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth that enhances the flavour of the crab.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for 2 minutes. Flour only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil, and the full two minutes lets it cook through so the sauce is smooth and not floury. Undercooked flour tastes raw and leaves the filling thin.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes