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Devilled Crab

Crab meat mixed with eggs, onions, peppers, pimentos, butter, flour, and spices, topped with cracker meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Devilled Crab

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove the string from the crab meat and pull it apart.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Make the filling

  1. Add the green pepper and onion, then stir in the flour; cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the crab meat, chopped eggs, pimentoes, Tabasco sauce, salt, and paprika; cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve in natural shells or on toast, topped with cracker meal and butter.

  2. Warm in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Crab + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Crab + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together311 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its seafood flavor.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the filling as they break down during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and vegetable mixture so the filling holds together.
Pimentoes
Add sweetness and mild color and flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling for 15-20 minutes. Cooking long enough lets the flour-thickened butter bind the crab, eggs and vegetables into a spoonable mixture. Stirring occasionally prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, egg, pepper, butter, flour, sauce. 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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