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Crabs, Dressed

Crabs, Dressed is a dish of crab meat mixed with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, mustard, and parsley, served in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Crabs, Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crabs

  1. Remove the gills and apron from the crabs.

  2. Pick all the meat out of the crabs.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the crab meat with an equal quantity of salad oil and vinegar to taste.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little mustard.

Fill and serve

  1. Clean out the crab shells and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Garnish with fresh parsley and small claws.

  3. Serve on folded napkins.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour of the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the crab meat soft and well coated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the crab meat and balances the oil.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, aromatic note that complements the sweetness of the crab.

The step that matters

Mixing the crab meat with the oil and vinegar. Add the vinegar gradually and taste as you go, since acidity can quickly overwhelm the delicate sweetness of crab. Gentle mixing keeps the meat in intact pieces so it stays tender rather than mashed.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, vinegar, pepper, mustard. 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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