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To Dress Crab

A savory mixture of butter, shallots, herbs, and sherry used to fill and bake crab shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

To Dress Crab

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.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the shallots and parsley until soft.

  2. Add the mixed herbs and broth or water; boil for a few minutes, then remove the herbs.

  3. Stir in the grated roll, olive oil, sherry, lemon juice, cayenne, and salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Add the crab to warm it through, then fill the crab shell with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and place in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes to brown.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Roll
Soaks up liquid and binds the filling, giving it body rather than a runny texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while softening the shallots without browning them.
Shallots
Provide a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that builds the base flavour of the dressing.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour that complements the sweetness of the crab.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavours and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Warming the crab in the dressing. Crab is already cooked, so it only needs to be heated through. Overheating it toughens the delicate protein and dries the filling, so warm it gently before filling the shell.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, butter, olive, sherry, lemon, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, olive, sherry, lemon, pepper. 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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