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Bisque of Crabs

A crab bisque made with live crabs, vegetables, stock, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bisque of Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crabs

  1. Soak the crabs in cold water with salt for 1 hour.

  2. Fry the chopped carrots and onions in butter with the crabs for 5 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Add thyme, bay leaf, and white stock.

  2. Cover.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the crabs.

  5. Strain the broth.

  6. Let it cool.

  7. Pour off the top layer of fat.

Prepare the crab meat and finish

  1. Remove the shells from the crabs.

  2. Discard the lungs and small legs.

  3. Wash in warm water.

  4. Chop the crab meat.

  5. Mix with cooked rice and some of the cooking juice.

  6. Drain through cheesecloth.

  7. Season with salt and red pepper.

  8. Heat just before serving without boiling.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the sweet, delicate meat that forms the body and flavour of the bisque.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps soften the onions and carrots without browning them.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds as they cook slowly, building the base flavour of the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Cooked rice
Thickens the bisque and gives it a smooth, creamy texture when blended with the crab meat.

The step that matters

Heat just before serving without boiling. Boiling a cream-and-seafood soup can make proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the texture grainy and the flavour dull. Gentle heating keeps it smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, carrot, butter, thyme, rice, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, carrot, butter, thyme, rice, 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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