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Deviled Crabs

A baked dish of crab meat mixed with parsley, eggs, spices, biscuits, mustard, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Crabs

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix

  1. In a bowl, combine crab meat, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, red and black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the rolled biscuits, dry mustard, melted butter, and cream to the mixture and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into crab shells or a baking dish.

  2. Bake for 20–25 minutes or until heated through and lightly browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Crab meat
Forms the main body of the filling and provides the seafood flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Bind the filling and add richness and body as they set.
Uneeda biscuits
Absorb liquid and add bulk, giving the filling structure and a softer texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the filling stays tender when baked.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the crab.

The step that matters

Bake until heated through and lightly browned. Egg proteins set with heat, so the filling needs enough time to firm up and heat fully. Stopping early leaves it loose and cool in the center, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, meat, egg, pepper, biscuit, mustard, butter. 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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