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Stuffed Crabs

A baked dish of crab meat mixed with bread, spices, and eggs, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

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

Stuffed Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the crabs and mix it with the bread, salt, red pepper, and minced hard boiled eggs.

  2. In a saucepan, boil the cream and milk with the grated onion, butter, and parsley.

  3. Pour the cream mixture over the crab mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and small bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main body of the filling and its sweet, savoury flavour.
Bread
Absorbs the liquid and gives the filling body so it holds together when baked.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and firm texture to the filling as they set during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the filling along with the cream.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour the cream mixture over the crab mixture. The bread needs time to soak up the hot liquid evenly. Pouring too quickly or unevenly leaves dry patches, while too much liquid makes the filling loose and hard to fill into the shells.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, onion, bread, pepper, milk, cream, butter):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, onion, bread, pepper, milk, cream, butter. 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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