Sunday I made the Crab Fried Rice recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

This fried rice is Thai, and that’s reflected in the use of fish sauce instead of soy sauce and sesame oil which seems to be Kenji’s go-to for the bulk of the fried rice recipes. Kenji calls for crab in “pieces as large as you can find,” which for us is jumbo lump. I don’t know the last time I purchased crab meat, but I was surprised at the cost of it. YDFM sells jumbo lump in 16oz containers for $50. The recipe only calls for 4 oz, which if I could buy 4 oz for $12.50 I would, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay $50. Publix had 8 oz containers of jumbo lump for $29, which we splurged on. Even though it was more expensive per pound, it was cheaper overall (I used the leftover 4 oz to make crab omelettes for breakfast the next morning).

In a turn from previous fried rice recipes, Kenji does not start with cooking the egg, but rather starts with the aromatics and then the rice, and then, pushing all that to the side scrambles the egg in the wok. After that’s tossed together, the crab, fish sauce, and scallions are added, and then it’s finished with white pepper and cilantro.

Megan and I thought this fried rice was good. I note that Kenji uses 2 teaspoons of fish sauce compared to the 1 teaspoon of soy sauce in the other fried rices. I think the added saltiness helps prevent it from being bland like we’ve found most of the other fried rice recipes.

The Crab Fried Rice was tasty enough to make again, but the cost of crab is generally prohibitive.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.