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Imitation Crab

A dish made by mixing minced fowl meat with cheese, onions, chilies, anchovy paste, mustard, mushroom ketchup, pepper, salt, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Imitation Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the white meat of boiled or roasted fowl very fine with the liver to make about 6 tablespoons.

  2. Add the pounded cheese, chopped onions, and chopped chilies or red pepper to the minced meat. Mix thoroughly, then add the anchovy paste, mustard, mushroom ketchup, black pepper, and salt.

Finish

  1. Finally, stir in the sweet oil until well combined.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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

Fowl white meat
Forms the bulk of the mixture and gives it its meaty body.
Pounded cheese
Adds savoury richness and helps bind the mixture together.
Onions
Contribute sharpness and aromatic flavour when raw and finely chopped.
Anchovy paste
Adds deep savoury umami that rounds out the flavour.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and dark, umami-rich flavour.
Sweet oil
Adds fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth, rich texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cheese, pepper, anchovy, mustard, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cheese, pepper, anchovy, mustard, mushroom, ketchup. 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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