Name: Crab-Rice Rockefeller
Ingredients: 1/2 cup chopped onion; 2 teaspoons margarine; 1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, drained well; 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt; 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper; 3 cups hot cooked brown rice; 1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise; Vegetable cooking spray; 1 6-ounce package frozen lump or white crab meat, thawed; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley; 1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce; 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese; 1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,025 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab meat: Forms the main seafood flavour and the topping texture of the dish.
Spinach: Provides the bulk, moisture and green base of the filling.
Brown rice: Adds body and a chewy texture that holds the filling together.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the rice and spinach into a creamy mixture.
Parmesan cheese: Browns under the broiler, adding a savoury, golden crust.

The step that matters

Broil for only 2 to 3 minutes. The filling is already hot and the crab is delicate. Over-broiling dries the mayonnaise-based mixture and toughens the crab, while the cheese can scorch before the top is evenly golden.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, spinach, pepper, rice, crab, parsley, sauce):

Limefits about as well
Avocadofits about as well
Lemonthe original
Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, spinach, pepper, rice, crab, parsley, sauce. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Vegetable	1 tbsp (14g)	120
Parmesan Cheese	1 oz (28g)	110
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Shrimp	100g cooked	99
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Spinach	1 cup raw (30g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Meat	not in our table	0
Sauce	not in our table	0

Crab-Rice Rockefeller