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Farcied Crabs

Farcied Crabs are crabs stuffed with a seasoned flour and egg mixture, baked and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Farcied Crabs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crab

  1. Boil crabs in salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Let them cool.

  3. Pick out the crab meat and spread it on a platter.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix flour, corn-starch, butter, white pepper, cayenne, salt, eggs, mace, and nutmeg into a smooth paste.

  2. Heat cream until it boils.

  3. Stir the boiling cream quickly into the mixture to avoid lumps.

  4. Pour the thickened mixture over the crab meat.

  5. Stir with a wooden spoon.

Fill, glaze and bake

  1. Wash and dry the crab shells thoroughly.

  2. Fill the shells with the mixture.

  3. Separate the yolk from the white of an egg.

  4. Beat the yolk.

  5. Smooth the beaten yolk over the filled crabs.

  6. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  7. Serve hot or cold, garnished with parsley.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabs
Provide the meat that forms the bulk of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the mixture into a smooth paste with the cornstarch.
Corn-starch
Thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, glossy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a softer texture.
Eggs
Help bind and set the filling, and the yolk gives browning on top.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the sauce once heated and thickened.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiling cream into the mixture. Adding the cream quickly while it is boiling and stirring constantly helps the starch thicken evenly, preventing lumps from forming in the sauce.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, flour, corn, butter, egg, mace, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, flour, corn, butter, egg, mace, nutmeg. 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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