Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Crabs

A baked crab dish filled with a seasoned cracker and egg mixture, topped with toasted crackers and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crab meat

  1. Boil the crabs until done, then carefully remove the meat from the shells.

  2. Clean the crab shells.

  3. Dry the cleaned crab shells.

Make the crab mixture

  1. Soak the crackers in milk.

  2. Mash the soaked crackers finely.

  3. Strain the mashed crackers through a fine sieve.

  4. Beat the eggs until light.

  5. Mix the beaten eggs into the strained crackers along with salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

  6. Add the crab meat to the mixture and stir well.

  7. Add 1 tablespoon of wine to the crab mixture before filling the shells.

Fill, bake and serve

  1. Fill the crab shells with the crab mixture.

  2. Brown the additional crackers.

  3. Mash the browned crackers finely.

  4. Sift the mashed crackers over the filled crab shells.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes before serving.

  6. Serve hot on a napkin, garnished with parsley.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 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

Crabs
Provide the meat that forms the filling and gives the dish its main flavor.
Crackers
Soaked and mashed into a binder that gives the filling body and a soft, crumbly texture.
Milk
Softens the crackers so they blend smoothly into a moist, cohesive filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking, holding the filling together in the shells.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the filling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, milk, egg, pepper, nutmeg, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, milk, egg, pepper, nutmeg, wine. 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.

You might also like

Crab SoupCrab Soup39 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes