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Crab Patties

A pastry-wrapped crab mixture baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Crab Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the crab and mix it with mustard, cream, vinegar, and salt.

Assemble the patties

  1. Roll out the pastry and cut it into rounds.

  2. Line small patty tins with the pastry, wet the edges, and fill each with a spoonful of the crab mixture.

  3. Cover with more rounds of pastry, press the edges lightly together, and cut a hole in the center.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  2. Serve hot or cold, garnished with watercress.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Crab + anchovytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Crab + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Cream + anchovytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Provides the main filling, giving the patties their flavor and substance.
Flaky pastry
Forms the layered shell that puffs and browns in the oven around the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the crab filling soft rather than dry.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the crab.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that complements the sweet crab meat.

The step that matters

Pressing the pastry edges together. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during baking and the patty can open up. Wetting the edges helps the pastry layers bond before they are pressed together.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, vinegar, cream, anchovy):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, vinegar, cream, anchovy. 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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