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Crab Sauce

A sauce made with crab, white sauce, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Crab Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Simmer the cleaned and broken crab shell in equal parts milk and water to make fish stock.

  2. Cut the crab into small pieces.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the crab, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and cayenne to the hot white sauce.

  2. Remove the saucepan from heat and let it sit for a few minutes before serving.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sauce + crabtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

White sauce
Provides a creamy, smooth base that carries the other flavors and textures.
Crab
Supplies the main flavor and tender, flaky texture of the sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savory, salty depth that enriches the seafood flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice and crab to the hot white sauce. Lemon juice is acidic and can curdle a milk-based sauce if it is boiling, so keep the heat moderate. Crab meat also turns tough and dry with prolonged heat, so it should only warm through.

“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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