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Buttered Crab, or Lobster

A buttery crab or lobster dish flavored with mustard, vinegar, cayenne, nutmeg, and optional meat jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Buttered Crab, or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the crab or lobster flesh with the butter.

  2. Heat slowly over a gentle fire.

  3. Mix in the mustard and vinegar until smooth.

  4. Add cayenne pepper and grated nutmeg to taste.

  5. Heat the mixture thoroughly and serve immediately in the shell or scallop shells.

  6. Optionally, top with breadcrumbs or a spoonful of meat jelly.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab or lobster flesh
Provides the main body and sweet, delicate seafood flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture as it melts into the mixture.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Heat slowly over a gentle fire. Heating gently keeps the butter emulsified and the delicate crab flesh tender. High heat can separate the butter and toughen the seafood, making the sauce greasy and grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, flour, mustard, vinegar, pepper, meat):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, flour, mustard, vinegar, pepper, meat. 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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