Skip to main content
Main

Crabs Au Gratin

A baked crab dish topped with cracker crumbs, paprika, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Crab and meat work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 448 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Crabs Au Gratin

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. Lay the crab meat in a deep buttered dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter and flour to make a roux until smooth.

  2. Stir in the hot stock and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Work in the heated cream, which should have a small amount of baking soda mixed in.

  4. Season the sauce with salt, cayenne, and Worcestershire sauce, then pour it over the crab meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with cracker dust, sprinkle with paprika, dot with butter, and brown in the oven.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its delicate seafood flavor.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the roux and the topping.
White stock
Provides the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the hot stock and cook for 3 minutes. Adding hot stock to the roux gradually and stirring well prevents lumps. Cooking the sauce lets the flour's starch swell and thicken it fully, so it coats the crab rather than running off.

“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

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesCrab SoupCrab Soup39 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes