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Deviled Crabs

A baked crab dish with a creamy mustard and Worcestershire sauce sauce topped with buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix with the flour over medium heat.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until it boils.

  3. Add the seasonings, Worcestershire sauce, chopped parsley, and lemon juice; boil for 5 minutes while stirring continuously.

Fill and bake

  1. Stir in the crab meat and the egg yolks that have been rubbed through a sieve.

  2. Arrange the mixture in crab shells and cover with buttered breadcrumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, decorated with sprigs of parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the dish its seafood flavour.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps it brown lightly on top.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce while stirring. Flour must be cooked in the boiling liquid to thicken fully and lose its raw taste. Stirring continuously prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, meat, parsley, egg, sauce, lemon, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, parsley, egg, sauce, lemon, 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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