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Crab Stew

A stew of crabs simmered in sweet milk with butter, pepper, lemon, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Crab Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the crabs.

Make the stew

  1. Boil the sweet milk in a pot.

  2. Add the butter and pepper to the boiling milk.

  3. Add the shredded crabs and heat until thoroughly hot.

  4. Slice the lemons and add them along with the sherry.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Crab + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the main protein and the delicate sweet flavor of the stew.
Sweet milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that carries the other flavors.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the milk.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the rich milk and crab flavors.
Sherry
Adds a wine-based aroma and a touch of sweetness and acidity.

The step that matters

Heat the crabs without boiling the milk. Milk boiled after the cream-based liquid is set can scorch or curdle, and the lemon's acid can cause milk proteins to clump when heated hard. Heat gently until the crab is just hot through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Pineapplefits about as well

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