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Crab Soufflees

A savory crab soufflé made with butter, flour, cream, eggs, anchovies, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and crab share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 79 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Crab Soufflees

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.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and gradually stir in the cream until boiling.

Assemble the soufflé

  1. Add the anchovies (washed, boned, and sieved), seasonings, crab flesh, and egg yolks.

  2. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into well-buttered souffle cases lined with buttered paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + crabtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together79 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Egg whites whisked to stiff peaks trap air, lifting the soufflé as it bakes; yolks enrich the base.
Flour
Flour thickens the butter and cream into a base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Butter
Butter forms the roux with the flour and adds richness and flavour to the base.
Cream
Cream adds moisture and richness, giving the base a smooth, tender texture.
Crab
Crab flesh provides the main flavour and a delicate texture within the soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whisked to stiff peaks hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the batter, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense.

“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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