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Siberian Crabs, Preserved

Crabs preserved in a sugar and apple jelly syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Siberian Crabs, Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Weigh the crabs and measure out the same weight in sugar.

  2. Make a syrup by boiling the sugar with apple jelly.

Cook the crabs

  1. Prick the crabs and add them to the boiling syrup.

  2. Boil the crabs for a few minutes, then remove and drain them on a sieve.

  3. Once cooled, return the crabs to the syrup and boil for a few more minutes.

  4. Drain the crabs again as before.

  5. Repeat this process one more time.

  6. Finally, place the crabs in glasses or jars and pour the boiling syrup over them.

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. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  3. Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Crabs
Form the main body of the preserve; pricking and repeated boiling let the syrup penetrate them.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps keep it from spoiling.
Apple jelly
Adds pectin and fruit flavour to the syrup and helps it set and cling to the crabs.

The step that matters

Repeated boiling and draining. Each boil in concentrated sugar syrup draws water out of the crabs and replaces it with sugar. Repeating the cycle gradually builds syrup concentration throughout, which is what preserves them. Skipping or shortening cycles leaves the flesh less saturated.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, sugar. 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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