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To Cook Crabs and Crab Salad

A dish of steamed crabs served with a dressing of melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Cook Crabs and Crab Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the crabs

  1. Place a few small sticks of wood in a pot or kettle.

  2. Add the crabs and pour enough vinegar to prevent burning.

  3. Cover and steam the crabs until cooked.

  4. Remove the crabs and pick the meat.

Serve

  1. Serve with a dressing of melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Make crab cakes seasoned and fried.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Crab + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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, which is cooked by steaming and then picked out for the salad.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat to the dressing, carrying flavour across the crab meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps keep the crabs from scorching during steaming.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Add enough vinegar before steaming. The record says vinegar is poured in to prevent burning. Without enough liquid in the pot, the crabs and the bottom of the kettle can scorch before they finish cooking.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, vinegar, butter, sauce, 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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