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Steaved Crabs

A crab dish cooked in butter, flour, tomatoes, celery, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steaved Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until brown.

  3. Add the strained tomatoes, chopped celery, red pepper, and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Incorporate the crab breasts and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. 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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavor into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and, when cooked brown, adds nutty color and depth.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity, moisture, and body to the sauce.
Crab breasts
Supply the main seafood flavor and tender texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour until brown. Flour needs enough heat and time to toast without scorching. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste, while burnt flour turns bitter and dark, so stir steadily and watch the color closely.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, celery, pepper, 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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