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To Dress Crab

A buttery herb and sherry sauce for crab.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Dress Crab

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the shallots and parsley finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the chopped shallots, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  4. Pour in the broth or water.

  5. Boil for a few minutes.

  6. Remove the herbs.

Make the dressing

  1. Stir in the grated roll, olive oil, sherry, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the crab to warm it through.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture back into the crab shell.

  2. Top with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until browned.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dressing and is warmed through in the mixture.
Roll
Adds body and helps bind the mixture so it holds together in the shell.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for flavour and a smooth texture.
Shallots
Add a mild sweet-savoury aroma to the base.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the dressing.
Bread crumbs
Form a top layer that browns in the oven for a crisp finish.

The step that matters

Bake until just browned. The dressing is already cooked and the crab is only warmed, so a short bake is enough to brown the topping. Longer baking can dry the crab and toughen the crumbs.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, butter, olive, sherry, lemon, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, olive, sherry, lemon, pepper, bread. 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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