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Hot Crab, or Lobster

A hot crab or lobster dish cooked with butter, flour, vinegar, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and optional meat jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hot Crab, or Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crab

  1. In a saucepan, combine the crab or lobster flesh with butter rolled in flour.

  2. Heat slowly over a gentle fire.

  3. Mix in the vinegar and cayenne pepper, adjusting to taste.

  4. Grate in a little nutmeg and heat until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately in the shell or scallop shells, plain or topped with breadcrumbs.

  2. For added flavor, include a spoonful of meat jelly.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Crab or lobster flesh
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its seafood flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the warm mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and helps bind the crab into a cohesive mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, sweet flavor of the seafood.
Cayenne pepper
Provides gentle heat that contrasts with the sweetness of the crab.

The step that matters

Heat slowly over a gentle fire. Crab and lobster flesh are delicate proteins that toughen and turn rubbery when overheated. Gentle, slow heating warms the mixture through while keeping the meat tender and the butter-flour sauce smooth rather than broken or greasy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, meat):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, meat. 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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