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Broiled Soft-shelled Crabs

Broiled soft-shell crabs served on toast with a glaze of maitre d'hotel butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Crab and butter work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Broiled Soft-shelled Crabs

6 crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the crabs thoroughly, then drain them.

  2. Lightly oil the crabs and season with salt and pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the crabs on the broiler and broil for 5 minutes on each side.

  2. Prepare 6 pieces of toast and place a crab on top of each.

  3. Glaze the crabs with a little maitre d'hotel butter and serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft-shelled crabs
Provide the tender, fully edible body that becomes crisp and juicy under high heat.
Oil
Carries heat to the crab surface and helps it brown evenly without sticking.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Adds fat and herby, savory flavor when spooned over the hot crabs just before serving.

The step that matters

Broil each side for 5 minutes. Soft-shell crabs are thin and cook quickly; too little heat leaves them pale and watery, while too long dries the meat. Turning them once lets both sides brown evenly.

“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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