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Crab Creole

A creamy crab stew with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crab Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and green peppers.

  2. Brown the chopped onions and peppers in butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes and strain them.

  2. Add the strained tomatoes to the onion and pepper mixture.

  3. Shred the crabs and add them to the mixture.

  4. Finally, stir in the cream and let it all come to a boil.

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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main protein and sweet, delicate flavor that defines the dish.
Tomatoes
Form the liquid base of the sauce and add acidity and body.
Onions
Build a savory, sweet aromatic base when browned in butter.
Green peppers
Add fresh, slightly bitter aroma and texture to the sauce base.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the tomato's acidity.

The step that matters

Let the cream come to a boil. Boiling cream with an acidic tomato sauce can cause it to curdle or separate, so the heat should be watched closely once the cream is added.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, onion, cream, pepper, butter, egg. 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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