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Deviled Crabs

A baked crab dish with a creamy, seasoned filling and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Deviled Crabs

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 filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, rub the butter and flour together, then add the cream over medium heat, stirring until smooth and thick.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the mashed egg yolks, salt, lemon juice, onion juice, cayenne pepper, and crab meat until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the cleaned crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and small bits of butter.

  3. Bake until golden brown and serve with Tartare sauce.

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 gives it its flavour.
Cream or rich milk
Makes the sauce rich and moist once thickened with flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable binding sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help bind it into a creamy texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream sauce. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and stirred constantly as the cream is added, or lumps form and the sauce will not set evenly. A thick base keeps the filling from running out of the shells during baking.

“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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