It’s been a long since we cooked crab at home. That’s why when my mom asked me yesterday night on what’s for lunch for tomorrow I quickly said crab. Of course, I’ll be the one to cook or else the expensive and precious crab will just be steamed. Not that I don’t like steaming it, it’s just that I want something new on how the crab will be prepared.
For our lunch this Saturday, I decided to make crab in garlic and hoisin sauce. Luckily, my mom was able to buy crabs with the glory of its fats. The crabs are small in size and I even complain that she should have bought the bigger ones. According to my mom, she bought the female crabs which are more flavorful (more fats) than the male crabs, which happened to be true.
Ingredients:
1kilo Crab
2 cups Cooking Oil, for deep frying
4 Tablespoon Cooking Oil, reserved from the oil used for deep frying
1 head Garlic, finely chopped
1 stalk Celery, sliced
1 Tablespoon Crab Paste
3 Tablespoon Hoisin Sauce
pepper to taste
Procedure:
1. Clean the crab. Remove the head, but do not discard, cut the body of the crab into half. (Those yellow color in the photo are crab fats.)
2. Deep fry the crabs until orange in color. Remove from oil using a slotted spoon and drain for excess oil.
3. Saute Garlic until golden brown and add celery. Saute until celery withered.
4. Add crab paste, hoisin sauce and season with pepper. (You may add chili but in my case, my mom and dad doesn’t want spicy food so I must bare with them, though I love spicy food and I think this recipe must be spicy to enjoy its full flavor.)
5. Toss in the crab until all the surface is covered by the sauce. Enjoy with hot steaming bowl of rice.
HOW DOES IT TASTE?
Though I did not season it with salt, the dish is very crabby flavorful. It is savory with hint of sweetness (maybe from the hoisin sauce) with the mild spiciness from the black pepper. By opening the crab, the crab meat absorbs the flavor from the hoisin sauce and the crab paste making every shred of the crab meat so heavenly delicious. We paired it with rice and we almost devour a kilo of crab. My sister still wants more but too lazy to remove the crab shell and even requested that next time I removed the shells (Lucky you!).
