Wednesday, July 2, 2014

stir-fried flower crab with fermented black beans, chili and garlic

Today I went to the wet market.

I love the wet market. It is such an exciting place and one never knows what one is going to find.

And today, I found some flower crabs.
I love seafood of all sorts, and crabs are the one thing that the LAM is not keen on. He reckons that there is too much work involved for too little meat.

Fair enough, I guess. After all, there's more for me when he does not want to eat!

My helper, though, loves crabs. So when I got home from the market, she was more than happy to clean the crabs. Which means I was free to take photographs of the crab-cleaning process!

Here's how to clean crabs, if you don't already know.

Turn the crab upside down. Lift the flap, pull it off and discard.
Turn the crab over, pull the shell off and discard.
Remove the gills on both sides of the crab.
Wash the crab.
And chop it in the middle.
To cook the crabs, I started by sauteing ginger in a little oil in a hot wok for a minute. Then I added fermented black beans and chili and cooked a further minute.
I added the minced garlic, gave everything a stir before adding the crabs.
To this, I added black bean sauce and XO sauce, as well as pepper and water.
Once the crabs had turned pink, the dish was ready.
This is a really quick stir-fry.

If you like crabs, then you will definitely like this!
As you can see, I could not wait to start eating!

RECIPE
Stir-Fried Flower Crab with Fermented Black Beans, Chili and Garlic (Serves 4)

Ingredients:
1 kg flower crabs, cleaned and halved
1 piece ginger (thumb size), julienne
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large chilli, sliced
1 tablespoon fermented black beans
1 tablespoon black bean sauce
1/2 teaspoon XO sauce
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/8 cup water

Method:
1. Saute ginger in hot vegetable oil for a minute. Add chilli and fermented black beans. Cook for another minute.
2. Add garlic, give it a stir. Add crabs, black bean sauce, XO sauce, pepper and water,
3. Stir until the crabs have turned pink.
4. Serve immediately.




2 comments:

  1. Hi Diana! Me too not so keen on crabs as they are so messy to eat! I'll just help myself to the gravy hah...hah...

    ReplyDelete