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Crab Fried Rice

A stir‑fry of crab, vegetables, and rice seasoned with fish sauce.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and fish sauce work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 411 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 5

Ingredients

Contains: soy, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Fry the crab and aromatics

  1. Stir fry the crab in the 5 tbsp oil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, and reserve.

  2. Heat the remaining oil, and use to stir fry the garlic, red onion, scallion, and red chilies for 1 minute until fragrant.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the fried crab and bean sprouts. Stir until the crab changes color.

  2. Add the rice, fish sauce, salt, and black pepper. Stir until well-mixed. Serve hot.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Rice + fish saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Olive + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,838 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Provides the main protein and savoury seafood flavour, and is cooked only briefly to stay tender.
Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the oil and seasonings as it is stir fried.
Olive oil
Carries heat evenly and carries the flavour of the garlic and onion through the dish.
Garlic
Releases aromatic compounds when fried briefly in oil, giving the dish its base fragrance.
Fish sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the flavour of the rice.
Bean sprouts
Add a crisp, fresh texture that contrasts with the soft rice and crab.

The step that matters

Stir fry the crab for only 1 minute. Crab is already cooked, so extra heat squeezes out moisture and toughens its protein, leaving it rubbery rather than tender.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, onion, crab, rice, fish sauce, pepper):

  1. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, onion, crab, rice, fish sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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