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Crabs a LA Creole

A dish of soft shell crabs simmered in butter, onion, sweet Spanish pepper, tomato pulp, and chicken broth, seasoned with sea salt and celery salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Crabs a LA Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the minced onion and sweet Spanish pepper; cook for 5 minutes, stirring well.

  3. Stir in the strained tomato pulp and chicken broth.

Cook the crab

  1. Add the crab halves and season with coarse sea salt and celery salt.

  2. Simmer for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft shell crabs
Provide the main protein, which cooks through in the simmering sauce.
Strained tomato pulp
Forms the body of the sauce and adds acidity and savory flavor.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the base flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps soften the vegetables without browning.

The step that matters

Simmering the crab. Soft shell crab is delicate and cooks quickly. Simmering gently while stirring occasionally keeps the crab tender and prevents the sauce from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, pepper, tomato, chicken, crab):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, pepper, tomato, chicken, crab. 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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