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Crab Creole

A creamy crab dish with onions, pepper, tomatoes, butter, cream, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crab Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions, pepper, and tomatoes; simmer until soft.

  3. Stir in the cream and cayenne pepper.

Finish

  1. Add the crab meat and warm through.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Meat + crabtop 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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Cream + crabtop 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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the flavor base of the dish.
Tomatoes
Break down into a juicy, acidic base that gives the sauce body and tang.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries flavor through the skillet.
Cream
Thickens the sauce slightly and adds a smooth, rich texture.
Crab meat
Provides the main protein and delicate sweet flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Add the crab meat and warm through. Crab is already cooked and delicate, so over-heating can make it tough and dry. Warming it gently in the sauce keeps it tender.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, cream, meat, 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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