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Fkied Soft Shell Crabs

Fried soft shell crabs seasoned with salt and cayenne, coated in cornmeal or flour, and fried in lard, garnished with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Fkied Soft Shell Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the crabs by removing the dead claws and the sandbag between the eyes.

  2. Wash and dry the crabs with a cloth.

Coat and fry

  1. Mix the meal with salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Dip the crabs in the mixture.

  3. Fry the crabs in plenty of boiling hot lard.

  4. Garnish with a fried bunch of parsley.

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

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Crab + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together384 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft shell crabs
Main ingredient; their soft shell is tender enough to eat once fried.
Meal (cornmeal or flour)
Forms a dry coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Lard (in the method)
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and gives the coating a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Frying in plenty of very hot lard. Hot fat sets the coating quickly so it crisps instead of soaking up oil. If the lard is cool or crowded, the coating turns greasy and the crabs cook unevenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, flour, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, flour, 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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