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Devilled Crabs

A dish of crab meat mixed with breadcrumbs, egg yolks, lemon, spices, and butter, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Devilled 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 and let them cool.

  2. Break the shells and pick out the meat.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine crab meat, bread crumbs, chopped egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Mix in enough drawn butter to create a soft mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill scallop or clam shells, or pate pans with the mixture.

  2. Sift cracker dust over the top.

  3. Brown delicately in a 400°F (200°C) 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 filling and provides the dish's flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling into a soft mixture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling as they set with heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and butter flavors.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and moisture so the filling stays soft and rich.

The step that matters

Mix in the drawn butter until soft. Too little butter leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much makes it greasy and loose. Adding it gradually lets you reach a soft mixture that holds its shape without becoming runny.

“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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