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Crab Croquette

A fried roll made with crab meat, eggs, seasonings, and crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crab Croquette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Add salt, black pepper, dry mustard, and melted butter to the eggs.

  3. Mix in the crab flesh thoroughly.

  4. Add the crushed crackers and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into rolls.

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

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

  2. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Mustard + crabtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + crabtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Crab flesh
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Crushed crackers
Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture can be shaped into rolls.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the rolls until golden brown. The filling is already cooked and held together only by egg and cracker. Frying at a steady heat browns the outside and sets the coating, so the centre heats through without the crust burning or the rolls falling apart.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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