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Creole of Crab

A sauce of green peppers, onions, tomatoes, cream, and crab served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 ↓

Creole of Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped green peppers and onions with the butter, salt, and pepper. Boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the tomatoes and boil until well dissolved.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the cream with the flour and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the picked crabs and serve over toast.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Butter + crabtop 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

Green peppers
Provide the bulk and a sweet, aromatic base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor while softening the vegetables.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, body, and color to the sauce as they break down.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Globe a-1 flour
Thickens the cream as its starch swells when the mixture boils.
Crabs
Supply the main protein and sweet seafood flavor.

The step that matters

Mix the cream with the flour before boiling. Flour must be fully blended into the cream first, otherwise it clumps. Once boiling, its starch swells and thickens the sauce evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, butter, cream, flour, 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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