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Crab Soup

A soup made from crabs, tomatoes, and seasonings, finished with reserved crab meat, butter, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Crab Soup

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Crab Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crabs

  1. Scald the crabs and pick the meat from six of them, reserving the meat.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the remaining crabs broken into pieces, tomatoes, and all seasonings with the water.

  2. Boil for about 3 hours, then strain the shells from the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the reserved crab meat, butter, and creamed flour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main meat and the flavorful body of the soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, giving the broth its base flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth slightly and adds a toasted, nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter just before serving. Flour thickens by swelling in hot liquid, so it should be added near the end and kept at a simmer rather than a hard boil. Overheating can cause lumps or a dull, pasty texture, and the butter stays fresher in flavor when stirred in at the end.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, parsley, butter, onion, marjoram, thyme, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, parsley, butter, onion, marjoram, thyme, 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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