Why it works: Crab and sugar work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 407 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells grass, green. The science ↓
Jelly of Siberian Crabs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crabs
Remove the stalks from the crabs, then wash and weigh them.
In a pot, add 1 pint of water for every 1½ pounds of crabs and boil gently until the crabs are broken but not pulpy.
Pour the mixture into a jelly bag and let the juice drain until it is transparent.
Make the jelly
Measure the juice and pour it into a clean preserving pan.
Boil the juice quickly for 10 minutes.
Stir in 10 ounces of sugar for each pound of juice until dissolved.
Boil the jelly for 12 to 15 minutes, skimming off any foam.
Set
Pour the jelly into molds and let it set.
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.
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Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together407 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Siberian crabs
- Provide natural pectin and tart flavour that help the juice gel.
- Fine sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm and hold its shape.
The step that matters
Boil the jelly for 12 to 15 minutes, skimming off any foam. The jelly must reach a high enough sugar and pectin concentration to set. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overcooking can darken and weaken the gel. Skimming removes foam that would cloud the finished jelly.
“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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