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Stuffed Crabs or Lobster

Stuffed crab shells filled with seasoned crab meat, bread crumbs, spices, lemon, butter, and sweet cream, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Crabs or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the shells

  1. Boil the crabs and pick out the meat, keeping the shells whole.

  2. Rub the shells with salad oil.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the crab meat with ¼ cup fine bread crumbs, a pinch of nutmeg, a dash of cayenne pepper, the grated rind and juice of 1 lemon, butter, and a little sweet cream.

  2. If using lobster, rub the coral with the cream.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture back into the shells.

  2. Dust lightly with bread crumbs and butter.

  3. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main meat that forms the filling and gives the dish its flavor.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling so it holds its shape in the shell.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft rather than dry.
Lemon (rind and juice)
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich crab meat.

The step that matters

Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven. The filling is already cooked, so the oven mainly browns the crumb topping. Watch closely, because dry crumbs and butter can scorch before the surface turns golden and the filling heats through.

“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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