Devilled Crabs
Twelve heavy crabs (hard shell); one-half pint of cream; one tablespoon of flour; four tablespoons of butter; one tablespoon of chopped parsley; one tablespoon of lemon juice; one-fourth of a nutmeg, grated; one teaspoon of mustard; one and one-half pint of grated bread crumbs; onefourth of a teaspoon of pepper; two teaspoons of salt. Boil the crabs thirty minutes. Drain and open them, pick out all the meat, and wash and wipe the shells. Heat the cream in a small saucepan; thoroughly mix the flour and mustard and two table- : spoons of the butter, and stir the mixture into the boiling cream. Boil two minutes, remove from the fire, and add the crab meat and seasoning. Mix well, and put the mixture in the crab shell. Sprinkle with the crumbs, and place the remainder of the butter, cut in small pieces, on top of the crumbs. Cook in a hot oven until the crumbs are brown, first placing the grate of the oven under the pan, so the heat will not be too great at the bottom. Serve on a bed of parsley, arranging the claws on it.
A straightforward baked crab gratin from the era when blue crabs came to the kitchen alive and by the dozen. Most of the adjustment needed is in the units, the oven, and the boiling time.
- Half a pint of creamOne cup. The pint and a half of grated bread crumbs is about three cups, which is generous for twelve shells; use what the tops will hold and keep the rest.
- The mustard is a powder"One teaspoon of mustard" in 1911 means dry English or Colman's-type mustard flour, not prepared mustard from a jar. It is whisked into the flour and butter so it cooks out in the sauce.
- Thirty minutes is too longHard-shell blue crabs are cooked through in 12 to 15 minutes in hard-boiling salted water. Half an hour leaves the meat stringy and washes out the flavour, and the meat is going into a hot oven afterward besides.
- A hot oven425F to 450F. The dish only needs to heat through and brown the crumbs, roughly 10 to 15 minutes, so watch it rather than timing it.
- The grate under the panAn old trick for shielding the bottom of a dish from fierce radiant heat in a range oven: an extra rack, or an inverted pan, set beneath. In a modern oven, put the pan on an upper rack instead, and finish under the broiler if the crumbs are slow to colour.
- The shellsCustomarily it is the top carapaces that are filled, though the recipe only says to wash and wipe the shells. Scrub them well, boil them a few minutes with a little soda or salt, and dry them. Small ovenproof ramekins or scallop shells do the same job if the crab shells break up.
- How much meat you will getTwelve good-sized hard crabs yield roughly a pound to a pound and a quarter of picked meat, about two to three cups. A pound of pasteurised lump crabmeat substitutes directly, though you then have no shells to fill.
- A quarter of a nutmegAround half a teaspoon freshly grated, which is assertive. Half that is closer to modern taste, and the lemon juice is better added off the heat with the crab so it does not curdle the sauce.
- YieldTwelve filled shells, enough for six as a first course or four as a main dish with bread and salad.
To "devil" a dish is to season it hot and sharp -- mustard, cayenne, sometimes Worcestershire -- a usage that appears in English cookery from the late eighteenth century and is generally traced to the notion of infernal heat rather than to any particular cook. Devilled crab in the American form belongs to the Chesapeake and the Atlantic seaboard, where blue crabs were cheap and plentiful and the emptied top shells made ready-made baking dishes; the same idea travelled south to Charleston and to Tampa, where the Cuban-influenced deviled crab croquette took a different shape entirely. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book for the same middle-class household its patterns served, and the recipe reflects that audience: a cream and butter binding, a dozen crabs bought live, and a presentation on a bed of parsley with the claws arranged around it for the table.