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A baked crab casserole with cream, butter, flour, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Other Dishes, Entrees, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add the onion juice, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fold in the picked crabs gently.

  2. Transfer to a baking dish, top with dried bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Crabs
Provide the main filling and the sweet, delicate meat that the casserole is built around.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce that holds the crab together.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and adds richness and moisture to the casserole.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the sauce, and browns the crumb topping in the oven.
Dried white bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns golden in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream into the roux. Adding the cream gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, flour, butter, cream, bread, pepper. 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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