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Potted Crab

A dish of crab and haddock mixed with butter and seasonings, then pressed into pots and covered with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and haddock share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potted Crab

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the picked crab and cooked haddock together.

  2. Add the melted butter and season well with salt, pepper, cayenne, and ground mace.

  3. Press the mixture into pots and cover with clarified butter.

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 + haddocktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Crab + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Picked crab
Provides the main sweet, delicate meat that forms the body of the potted mixture.
Cooked haddock
Adds firm flakes and bulk, giving the pounded mixture more body and texture.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the mixture a smooth, spreadable texture.
Anchovy essence
Adds a concentrated savoury, salty depth that enhances the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into pots. Packing the mixture firmly removes air pockets, so it sets dense and spreadable rather than crumbly. The clarified butter cover excludes air, which helps the potted crab keep and stay fresh.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, anchovy, haddock, butter, 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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