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Devilled Crab

A crab dish mixed with white sauce, anchovy, tarragon vinegar, mustard, and spices, topped with breadcrumbs and butter, baked until warmed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Devilled Crab

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the white sauce with anchovy, tarragon vinegar, salt, cayenne, black pepper, and mixed mustard.

  2. Gently fold in the meat from the body and claws of the crab.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the crab mixture back into the crab shell in a pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle browned breadcrumbs on top and dot with small pieces of butter.

  3. Heat through in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until warmed.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavour and texture.
White sauce
Binds the crab meat together and keeps the filling moist.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth and salty umami to the filling.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich crab and sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the top brown as it melts.
Browned breadcrumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping over the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the crab meat. Folding gently keeps the lumps of crab meat intact, so the filling stays tender and textured rather than turning mushy and pasty.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, sauce, anchovy, vinegar, pepper, mustard, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, sauce, anchovy, vinegar, pepper, mustard, 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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