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Kromeskeys of Crab

Crab meat rolls wrapped in salt pork, dipped in a batter of flour and egg, and fried.

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

Kromeskeys of Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Boil the crabs.

  2. Remove the meat from the shells.

  3. Season the crab meat with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the egg yolks and enough wine or sauce to moisten the crab meat.

  5. Form the crab mixture into small rolls, wetting your hands with cold water.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, cayenne, egg yolk, salad oil, and enough cold water to make a thick batter.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Wrap each roll in a slice of salt pork.

  2. Dip the wrapped rolls into the batter until fully coated.

  3. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Drain on brown paper.

  5. Serve hot.

  6. Garnish with parsley.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the filling, providing the main flavor and bulk of each roll.
All-purpose flour
Forms the thick batter that coats and structures the outside of each roll.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter so the coating fries up airy.
Egg yolks
Enrich the crab filling and batter, adding richness and helping bind the mixture.
Salt pork
Wrapped around each roll, it renders fat during frying and flavors the crab.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the coating lightness. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense, heavy coating after frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, flour, pepper, egg, pork, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, flour, pepper, egg, pork, wine. 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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