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 ↓
Crab Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crab and milk
Remove the flesh from the body and claw of the crab, and cut it into small pieces.
Stew the crab shell in milk until it reduces to ⅓ cup.
Make the sauce
Work the flour into the butter, then add the strained milk.
Put the mixture into a saucepan and stir over heat until it boils for 3 to 4 minutes.
Add the cream, crab, anchovy sauce, and cayenne, and heat thoroughly.
Finally, stir in the lemon juice.
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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Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Crab + anchovytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together79 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce with fat and a rich mouthfeel as it melts into the flour.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying flavour from the crab shell.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a silkier texture to the finished sauce.
- Crab
- Provides the main flavour and the body of the sauce.
The step that matters
Boiling the flour and butter mixture. Flour thickens only once its starch has been heated and boiled, so the mixture must reach a full boil and stay there for the stated time. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin sauce.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, flour, cream, milk, anchovy, sauce):
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, flour, cream, milk, anchovy, sauce. 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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