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Scalloped Crabs, with Mushrooms

A baked crab dish with mushrooms, cream, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Crabs, with Mushrooms

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

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

  2. Cut the crab meat and mushrooms into pieces of equal size.

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, heat the butter and onion juice, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Remove from heat and gradually mix in the hot cream or milk.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne, then add the egg yolks and crab meat.

  4. Stir in the mushrooms.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill crab shells or scallop shells with the mixture.

  2. Sift breadcrumbs on top and dot with small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  4. Squeeze lemon juice over the top 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 body and flavour of the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the breadcrumb topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, binding sauce.
Cream or rich milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the filling moisture and richness.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Powdered yolks add richness and help bind and thicken the filling.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.

The step that matters

Make the roux and add the hot cream gradually. Adding the liquid slowly to the hot roux, off the heat, lets the flour disperse evenly so the sauce turns smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, meat, mushroom, milk, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, mushroom, milk, cream, butter, flour. 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.

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