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Crab Soup

A soup made with crabs, onions, parsley, herbs, butter, flour, water, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Crab Soup

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and parsley, cooking until softened.

  3. Stir in the marjoram, thyme, and flour, cooking for a few minutes.

  4. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the cleaned crab bodies, breaking them in half, and crack the claws.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Reduce heat and let simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the curry powder.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main seafood flavor and body as they simmer in the broth.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, building the savory base of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness when it is melted into the pot at the start.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly when cooked with the butter and vegetables.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Cooking the flour for a few minutes in the butter and onions removes its raw taste. Adding it without cooking can leave a pasty flavor and lumps in the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, parsley, marjoram, thyme, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, parsley, marjoram, thyme, butter, flour, 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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