Recipe courtesy of Luke Nguyen
Salt and Pepper Red Crab: Cua Rang Muoi
- Level: Intermediate
- Yield: 4 servings
-
- Nutritional Analysis
- Per Serving
- Serving Size
- 1 of 4 servings
- Calories
- 260
- Total Fat
- 6
- Saturated Fat
- 1
- Carbohydrates
- 12
- Dietary Fiber
- 2
- Sugar
- 6
- Protein
- 38
- Cholesterol
- 155
- Sodium
- 658
- Total: 1 hr 33 min
- Prep: 30 min
- Inactive: 1 hr
- Cook: 3 min
Ingredients
For the Salt and Pepper Seasoning Mix:
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon fine white pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
For the Crab:
2 (14 ounce/400 g each) live crabs, blue swimmer or mud crab
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Potato starch, for dusting
3 red Asian shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
3 spring onions (scallions), cut into 2-inch/5 cm lengths
2 long red chiles, thinly sliced on the diagonal
Serving suggestion: Jasmine rice.
Directions
Special equipment:
cleaver- For the seasoning mix: In a bowl, mix salt, white pepper, sugar, and five spice pepper together.
- To prepare your crabs humanely, place them in the freezer for 1 hour to put them to sleep, or submerge them in an ice bath for 5 minutes.
- Remove the upper shell of the crab, pick off the gills, which look like little fingers, and discard them. Clean the crab under running water and drain.
- Place the crab on its stomach and chop the crab in 1/2 with a heavy cleaver.
- Now chop each 1/2 into 4 pieces, chopping each piece after each leg.
- With the back of the cleaver gently crack each claw - this makes it easier to extract the meat.
- Heat the oil in a wok to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C, or until a cube of bread dropped into the oil browns in 5 seconds.
- Dust the crab pieces with potato starch, shaking off the excess. Deep-fry the crab in batches for 3 minutes, turning over once, until golden brown.
- Remove from the wok and drain on kitchen paper towels. Remove the oil, reserving 2 tablespoons, and clean the wok.
- Heat the reserved oil in the wok, then add the shallots and garlic and fry until fragrant.
- Return the crab to the wok and toss all ingredients together well, adding the salt and pepper seasoning mix to taste.
- Serve with jasmine rice and finger bowl.