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Hot Crab, or Lobster

A simple sautéed crab or lobster dish flavored with butter, flour, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Hot Crab, or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the crab or lobster meat into small pieces or pull it into light flakes with forks.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the meat with a few bits of butter rolled in flour.

  3. Heat the mixture slowly over a gentle fire.

  4. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of vinegar and mix thoroughly.

  5. Season with cayenne pepper and grate in a little nutmeg.

  6. Serve immediately once heated.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

Crab or lobster meat
Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries the flavor through the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and meat juices into a light, smooth binding.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich seafood and butter.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture slowly over a gentle fire. Heating gently keeps the butter and flour from scorching and lets the mixture thicken smoothly. High heat can toughen delicate crab or lobster meat and make the sauce break or turn grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, flour, vinegar, 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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