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Deviled Crabs

Deviled crabs are boiled crab meat mixed with butter, mustard, cayenne, salt, bread crumbs, and cream, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Deviled Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced crab meat with an equal quantity of fine bread crumbs.

  2. Cream the butter until light, then mix in the mustard powder.

  3. Carefully stir in the crab mixture, adding the cream and bread crumbs a handful at a time.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crab shells with the mixture, sprinkle bread crumbs on top, and place three small pieces of butter on each.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned and puffed.

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

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Fine bread crumbs
Bind the crab and absorb moisture so the filling holds together.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Mustard powder
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Carefully stir in the crab mixture. Folding gently keeps the crab in visible pieces and avoids overworking the mixture, which would make the filling dense and pasty rather than light and tender.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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