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Mock Crab

A dish that imitates crab meat using cheese and shrimps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mock crab

  1. Pound the cheese in a bowl with salad oil, vinegar, made mustard, pepper, and salt until it reaches the consistency of crab meat.

  2. Add the potted shrimps and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve in a crab shell or any decorative dish, garnished with sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mellow cheese
Pounded into a soft base that gives the mixture its crab-like, spreadable texture.
Potted shrimps
Supply the seafood flavour and tender, flaked pieces that make the dish resemble crab meat.
Salad oil
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the pounded cheese smooth and easy to spread.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese and oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the rich cheese and oil.

The step that matters

Pound the cheese until it reaches the consistency of crab meat. Pounding breaks the cheese into fine, even particles and blends in the oil and vinegar. Stopping too early leaves lumps, while over-working can make the mixture greasy or pasty, so the texture is the main thing to judge.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, vinegar, shrimp, mustard, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, vinegar, shrimp, mustard, pepper. 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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