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Deviled Crabs
Lob- Pick the meat from a boiled crab and cut in fine bits, add onethird as much bread-crumbs, two or three chopped hard-boiled eggs, and lemon juice; season with pepper, salt, and butter or cream. Clean the shells nicely and fill with the mixture, sprinkle over with bread-crumbs and small bits of butter, and brown in oven. sters may be prepared in same way, and served in silver scallopshells. Or, boil one pint milk, and thicken with one table-spoon corn starch mixed in a little cold milk, season with pepper (cayenne may be used) and salt, and pour over the picked-up lobster; put in baking-dish, and cover with bread-crumbs and a few pieces of butter, and brown in oven. -Mrs. Col. S., Norfolk, Va.
A straightforward crab stuffing baked back into the shells, with a lobster variation and a second, creamier version bound with cornstarch sauce. The original gives no oven temperature and no quantities for the crab, so both need pinning down.
- Oven heatThe original gives no temperature. Since everything in the filling is already cooked and the only goal is a browned crumb top, a hot oven (around 425F) for 10-15 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler, will do it.
- QuantitiesFigure about 1 lb picked crab meat (roughly 2 cups; it takes ten or a dozen blue crabs to pick that much), which takes about 2/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs at the stated one-third proportion, two hard-boiled eggs, and the juice of half a lemon. That fills four to six shells and serves three or four.
- The shellsThe recipe asks only that the shells be cleaned nicely before filling; the hard top shells are the usable part. Ceramic ramekins or scallop shells do the same job, and the recipe's own lobster note mentions serving in silver scallop-shells.
- Butter or creamThe recipe lists butter or cream among the seasonings without saying how. Soft butter worked into the mixture, two to three tablespoons for a pound of meat, or an equal splash of heavy cream, keeps the filling moist without making it loose.
- Don't overwork the crab"Cut in fine bits" is as far as it should go. Crab meat shreds into paste if stirred hard, and lump meat is worth keeping visible; fold the crumbs and egg in with a fork.
- The cornstarch versionOne tablespoon cornstarch to a pint of milk gives a thin sauce. Slake it in cold milk, add to the simmering milk, and cook two minutes at a bare simmer so the starch loses its raw taste before it goes over the meat.
- Crab and lobster todayPasteurised picked crab meat sold in tubs works well and saves the boiling and picking. If using it, drain it and taste before salting, as it can be salty and wet.
Deviled crab in the American sense means shellfish chopped, sharply seasoned, returned to the shell and browned - "deviling" having meant hot, peppery seasoning in English kitchens since the eighteenth century. That the contributor here is credited from Norfolk, Virginia is no accident: the Chesapeake blue crab fishery supplied Norfolk and Baltimore markets heavily in the late nineteenth century. The Dixie Cook Book collected contributions by name and town in this way throughout, so the attribution doubles as a claim of regional authority.