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Deviled Crabs

Baked crab shells filled with a seasoned mustard and egg yolk mixture, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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 saucepan, heat the milk and melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour and cook for two minutes.

  3. Stir in the shredded crab meat, salt, nutmeg, mustard, pepper, lemon juice, and sieved egg yolks.

  4. Fill the crab shells with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Top with breadcrumbs and a little melted butter.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes or until 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce that binds the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and helps browning on top.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Crab meat
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it set and hold its shape when baked.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the butter and milk. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter and stirred into the hot milk to thicken smoothly. If the sauce is not cooked enough, it stays starchy and thin, and it may lump if the milk is added too quickly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, crab, meat, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, crab, meat, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, 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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