Devilled Crabs — New Orleans Style
Mme. Josephine Nicaud
Scald your crabs only in boiling water. Pick and clean them carefully. Take out the firm white flesh, and throw out the yellow. Moisten the flesh with a little sweet cream. Taste to see that it is not bitter. Put with it stale breadcrumbs, salt and pepper it, and put this back into the shells; sprinkle with bread crumbs, and put in the oven to brown. Serve hot.
A gentler, Creole take — no cayenne fire at all, just sweet crab, cream and crumbs.
- Milder than its nameDespite the “devilled,” this New Orleans version skips the heat entirely; it’s really a delicate creamed-crab stuffing.
- “Throw out the yellow”The yellow is the crab’s fat and gland (the “mustard”); it can taste bitter, and modern health advisories warn it can concentrate contaminants — discarding it, as directed, is wise.
- “Sweet cream”Simply fresh cream (not soured); use just enough to moisten the picked white meat without drowning it.
- Taste for bitternessThe cook’s instruction to taste is sound wisdom — any trace of the gland or shell can turn the whole mix bitter.
- Scald, don’t overcookThe crabs are only scalded in boiling water, just enough to firm and lift the meat; the filled shells then go into the oven only to brown.
New Orleans sits at the edge of some of the richest blue-crab waters in the country, and Creole cooks treated the crab with a lighter hand than their Anglo-American neighbors. Where a Chesapeake “deviled” crab leaned on cayenne and mustard, this version — from the New Orleans contributor Josephine Nicaud — lets sweet cream and good bread carry the crab’s own flavor, seasoned with little more than salt and pepper. It is a small lesson in how one dish name could mean fire in one kitchen and restraint in another, shaped by local taste and abundant, first-rate crab.
From page 27 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
