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Crab, Curried

A creamy curried crab dish with French beans, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,935 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Crab, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Pound the garlic in a mortar with the coconut, curry powder, salt, and 1 tablespoon of butter until a paste forms.

  2. Mix the paste smoothly over low heat with the remaining butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the crab meat and gradually stir in the cream.

  2. Simmer with the French beans for 10 minutes.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over the dish before serving.

  4. Serve with rice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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.

  1. Garlic + beanstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,935 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Clove + beanstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together908 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Coconut + beanstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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 protein, giving the dish its flavour and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry paste and adds fat for a rounder, smoother sauce.
French beans
Adds bulk and a crisp-tender texture to the simmered dish.
Coconut
Contributes sweetness and a mellow, creamy background flavour to the curry paste.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced flavours.

The step that matters

Mix the paste smoothly over low heat. Gentle heat helps the butter bloom the curry spices without scorching them, and keeping the heat low prevents the butter from separating or the paste from sticking and burning.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, coconut, butter, crab, meat, cream, beans):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, coconut, butter, crab, meat, cream, beans. 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.

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