Cooking Fresh Mud Crab?!
Cooking Fresh Mud Crab?
Any different recipe's for cooking crab, besides the boring old boiled crab ?
Answers:
I highly recomend these recipes but be prepared for dirty fingers!
Try this Chilli Crab recipe:
1 lb (450g) mud crabs
3 tbsp vegetable oil
8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
8 fresh red chilli, roughly chopped
1 egg
2 spring onions (scallions), cut into finger length
1 tsp freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
1 small bunch coriander plant (cilantro)
Mix together for Sauce
1 cup of water, 5 tbsp tomato catsup, 1 1/2 to 3 tbsp sugar, or according to taste, 1 1/2 tsp cornflour, 1 tsp pounded brown preserved soya beans or dark miso (optional), 1/4 tsp salt
Method
Heat the oil in a wok or shallow saucepan over high heat. Add garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the chilli, stir-fry till fragrant. For mud crabs, add at this stage. Fry well till shells start turning red, add sauce ingredients stir well, cover with lid and simmer till shells are red. Break eggs into the wok and streak with a fork, simmer till cooked. Squeeze lime juice over and stir in scallions.
Serve with crusty bread.
Or Pepper Crab recipe:
Ingredients
2 lbs large mud crabs or prawns, claws cracked, shells removed and cleaned. Drain to dry.
Or 1 lb soft shelled crabs
1 cup flour if using soft shelled crabs
4 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 fresh red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
4 tbsp butter
10 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
10 slices young ginger
1 to 2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp dark soya sauce
2 tsp sugar (optional)
Coriander leaves to garnish
Oil for deep frying
Method
Dry-fry* black pepper in a wok or frying pan till fragrant. Remove and keep aside. The crabs taste best if they are deep fried in very hot oil first – deep fry on all sides till the crabs turn red. Drain and keep the oil aside. For soft shelled crabs, pat the crabs dry, cut each crab into 4, coat with flour and deep fry till golden browned and crispy. Heat a wok, add the butter and when it melts and is hot, add the garlic, ginger and chilli and stir fry for three minutes till the mixture is fragrant. Add the oyster sauce, soya sauce and sugar and stir well before adding the pepper. Stir fry a few seconds on high heat, add the crabs and stir fry one minute. Serve with the garnish.
* DRY FRYING is an old fashioned cooking method where food is stir fried till fragrant in a wok or frying pan without oil.
