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Imitation Crab

A mixture of minced poultry, cheese, onions, chilies, sauces, and sweet oil, blended to resemble crab.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce 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 ↓

Imitation Crab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the white meat of a roast or boiled fowl very fine with the liver to make about 6 tablespoons in total.

  2. Add the pounded cheese, chopped onions, and chopped chillies or cayenne peppers, then mix thoroughly.

Season and finish

  1. Add the anchovy sauce, Harvey sauce, mustard, mushroom ketchup, black pepper, and coarse sea salt, and mix well.

  2. Finally, mix in the sweet oil until well combined.

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 + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

White meat from fowl
Provides the bulk and the flaky, meaty texture that imitates crab.
Pounded cheese
Adds richness and savoury depth to the mixture.
Onions
Add sharpness and aroma that build the flavour base.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and moisture, making the mixture silkier and richer.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the richness.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury umami depth and dark colour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cheese, pepper, anchovy, sauce, mustard, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cheese, pepper, anchovy, sauce, mustard, mushroom. 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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