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Deviled Crabs

A crab dish mixed with eggs, butter, vinegar, and spices, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Drain the liquor from the crabs.

  2. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with melted butter.

  3. Add vinegar, pepper, mustard, and salt to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the well-beaten raw egg.

  5. Add the chopped whites of the hard-boiled eggs and mix well with the crab meat.

Fill and bake

  1. Wash the crab shells and fill them lightly with the mixture.

  2. Top with grated biscuit and pour 2 tablespoons of melted butter over each.

  3. Place in a pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve in an open dish garnished with parsley.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the main flavour and texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks mashed with butter make a rich, smooth base, while chopped whites add body.
Raw egg
Binds the filling together and sets during baking to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. The raw egg must cook through to set the filling, while the topping needs enough heat to brown. Baking too long dries out the crab meat and makes the filling tough.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, egg, butter, vinegar, 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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