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Devilled Crabs

Devilled crabs are boiled crab meat mixed with crumbs, sauces, spices, and butter, then baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Devilled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the crabs and remove the meat from the shells.

  2. Mix the crab meat with bread or cracker crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, mixed mustard, salt, pepper, cayenne, melted butter, and enough milk to moisten.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Dust the filled shells with cracker crumbs.

  3. Arrange the shells in a baking pan.

  4. Place a small piece of butter on each shell.

  5. Brown the shells in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 filling, with its flesh forming the body of each shell.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling a light, binding texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that seasons the filling throughout.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts the sweetness of the crab.

The step that matters

Moistening the filling. Enough milk must be added to moisten the crumbs without making the mixture wet. Too little leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much makes it loose and slow to set in the shells.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, bread, sauce, pepper, butter, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, bread, sauce, pepper, butter, milk. 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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