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Baked Crab

A baked crab dish with macaroni, cheese, and white sauce, topped with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Crab

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line the bottom of a small pie dish with cooked macaroni.

  3. Rub the bottom of the pie dish with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the white sauce over the macaroni.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese over the sauce.

  3. Mix crab meat with melted butter and place it over the macaroni.

  4. Dust with black pepper and cover with a layer of grated cheese.

  5. Drizzle a little melted butter on top.

  6. Bake until golden and bubbly.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Crab + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Provides the main flavor and tender, flaky meat that forms the filling.
Macaroni
Forms the base layer and gives the bake its starchy, substantial body.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess that keeps the layers from drying out as they bake.
Mild cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding richness and a golden crust.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Baking until golden and bubbly. Baking long enough lets the sauce bubble throughout and the cheese brown, so the dish is hot all the way through. Pulling it too early can leave a cool, loose center, while overbaking can dry the sauce and toughen the cheese.

“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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