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Crabs Au Gratin

A baked crab dish topped with cracker crumbs, paprika, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Crab and meat work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 448 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Crabs Au Gratin

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 sauce

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

  2. Lay the crab meat in a deep buttered dish.

  3. In a saucepan, heat the butter and flour to make a roux until smooth.

  4. Stir in the hot stock and cook for 3 minutes.

  5. Add the heated cream, which should have a small amount of baking soda mixed in.

  6. Season the sauce with salt, cayenne, and Worcestershire sauce.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the sauce over the crab meat.

  2. Cover with cracker dust.

  3. Sprinkle with paprika.

  4. Dot with butter.

  5. Brown in the oven.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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 dish and provides its seafood flavor.
Butter
Enriches the roux and dots the top, adding richness and helping the topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, stable sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Brown in the oven. The sauce must be hot and the topping dry enough to brown properly. Browning depends on Maillard reactions at high heat, so the gratin can look pale or stay watery if it is underbaked or the sauce is not heated through first.

“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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