Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2015

Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta


Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta
Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta


So, I did mention that our new car was amongst other activities, chosen for crabbing trips. However our first crabbing trip this year coincided with the day we picked up the Zoolander. Now, I’m not precious about a clean car – but I did want the car to be clean for at least one full day. So we took my sister-in-law’s car. It wasn’t our most successful trip, but we managed to catch enough for a feed for the 4 of us that went. I’m hoping we can go back later in the season so that all of the undersize ones have had a chance to grow into monsters!


After crabbing, cleaning off the gear and boiling up the crabs in plenty of water with a splash of vinegar and hot English mustard, we showered and finally got to bed around 5am. Then as has been tradition, Lance and I set up a shelling station in front of a tv. Then with a movie playing, we sit and peel all of the crabs. This year it took us 1 and a half movies. This equated to about 400g of crab flesh. I divided it into 2, then froze half for a later dish.


That night I cooked this very simple chili crab pasta. This pasta took it’s form from two of the things growing prolifically in our garden this summer – grape tomatoes and oregano. The grape tomato that Lance planted and lovingly waters every day has rewarded us with buckets of fruit. Some days we pick over 2 dozen! Then the flavours of the rest of the dish are Mexican, in a wonderfully fusion-food kind of way. It became like my riff on a Sopa Seca – or “dry soup”. A Mexican noodle dish flavoured with chipotles in adobo and served with sour cream and a smokey salsa. It was the perfect thing on a tired Sunday night with a lovely anejo tequila on the side.
Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta
 Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta

Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta

Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta


Chipotle Crab Pasta

(serves 4)
200g crab flesh, picked through for cartilage
One brown onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 chipotles in adobo sauce, plus 1 tbsp adobo sauce
20 grape tomatoes, roughly diced
2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
Big knob of unsalted butter (around 100g)
50mL reposado tequila
Zest and juice of one lime
Sea Salt
500g angel hair pasta
To serve
Greek yoghurt
Jalapeno slices


Bring a pot of water with a decent pinch of salt to the boil.


Heat a splash of olive oil in a large sauté pan or wok. Add the onion and cook for 10 minutes or so until soft and golden. Add the garlic and cook a further 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes to the pan and cook until soft and breaking down.


At this point, the pasta water is probably boiling. Add the pasta.


Add the tequila and lime juice and zest and stir through, scraping up bits that might have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Reduce the liquid by half, then add the butter and whisk through to melt and emulsify into a thick, glossy sauce. Stir through the chipotles, adobo sauce, oregano and crab. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the crab is heated through.


Drain the pasta, then stir through well to evenly coat with the sauce.


Serve with a dollop of Greek Yoghurt and sliced jalapenos. And maybe a lovely glass of tequila on the side!

Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta

Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta
 Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta
Summer Sensations - Chipotle Crab Pasta


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon





Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
 
Lance often mocks me the various random frozen things in ziplock bags I have in the freezer. He quizzed me the other day on whether I knew what was actually in them and he pointed out a bag of crab flesh from a summer crabbing trip. Given it’s recommended to be frozen 3-6 months, we decided it needed to be eaten. I enjoyed the pomegranate gin sabayon so much, I decided I’d do something similar. But I was in a tequila-y kinda mood.

This post is really two distinct recipes. Crab with a smokey tequila sabayon and a beetroot and lentil patty. Both of these recipes are fully standalone dishes. They taste amazing by themselves. I make a variation of this patty for burgers quite often (so good with sweet potato chips!). And the crab with a toasted sabayon in smaller portions on top of a fancy cracker/toast makes the most elegant canapĂ©. But the flavours go together really well and I’ve only photographed it together, so I’ll serve it up here in the one post! But the combination of earthy beetroot, sweet crab and smokey sauce is brilliant. Add a peppery leaves salad and you’ve got a perfect meal!
Word to the wise – don’t decide to make a sabayon after you come home from an arms session at the gym! The whisking is a work-out all in itself.

Oh, and the beet patties are fairly fragile, so be super careful when flipping and serving.
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon


Roast Beetroot Patties

2 large beetroot
1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for frying
400g tin lentils
1 cup cooked quinoa
½ tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 egg
2/3 cup oats (GF if need be)

Preheat the oven to 170C. Scrub the beets, then drizzle with 1 tbsp oil and wrap tightly in foil. Place in the oven and roast until fork-tender – around 40 minutes. Set aside to cool. When cool, rub with your fingers to remove the skins. Cut into quarters.

Place the beets and lentils into your food processor and pulse 4-5 times to break up the veges a bit and combine. Add the salt, basil and egg and pulse another 4-5 times to blend well. Remove to a bowl and add the oats, mix in with your hands, blending together well. Form into approximately 8 patties and lay out on a lined baking tray (just to save dishes) and place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up.
Heat a layer of oil in a large frypan to a medium heat and gently slide 4 patties in the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the patties are crisp on the bottom. Again, very gently flip with a spatula and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove to a paper towel lined plate and tent with tin foil to keep warm while you cook the next 4.
 
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon


Smokey Tequila Sabayon on Crab

1 clove garlic, sliced
1 tbsp honey
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp tequila
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp smokey paprika
200g cooked crab flesh, picked over for shell and cartilage.

Heat a tbsp. of oil in a frypan over a low heat and put the slices of garlic in. Toss around in the hot oil until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towel.
Preheat the oven to 150C. On a lined baking tray, form 6 small, tight piles of the crab flesh.

Fill a small saucepan with water and place a glass bowl over it. Heat to medium, until there are gentle bubbles. Add the egg yolks and honey to the glass bowl and whisk constantly until the eggyolks triple in volume and lighten. Take off the heat and whisk whilst slowly drizzling in the tequila. Keep whisking until fully incorporated and then whisk in the salt and paprika.

Spoon a few tablespoons of the sabayon on top of the crab piles, then place in the oven for 10 minutes until the top is just browning and the crab is heated through.

To serve, place a beetroot patty on the plate and gently slide a crab pile on top. Serve with a green salad

 
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Grilled Crab with Gin and Pomegranate Sabayon - with Warm Pink Grapefruit, Zucchini and Buckwheat Salad


Sometimes I see trends in types of recipes that go through my foodporn news feeds and it makes me think, hmm, I’ve never tried that before. It’s such a common dish, or component of a dish and despite being quite adventurous in my cooking, it’s not something I’ve ever made. Or even contemplated making – like mac and cheese. Can you believe this last weekend was the first time I’d ever made bĂ©chamel sauce? As I was stirring the milk and it was magically thickening and turning into a delicious thick sauce in a way I’d never seen before, I was thinking about starting this blog. It was initially about trying new things and opening myself up to new cooking experiences, so that we didn’t eat the same dishes on rote. But although the flavours I mix together are often unique and different and new, my methods of cooking haven’t really evolved much.

I watched Julie and Julia on the weekend (with a large bowl of mac and cheese using aforementioned bĂ©chamel sauce to cope with all that delicious food on screen) and watching Julie debone a duck and going through the calf leg gelatin section of Julia Child’s cookbook made me determined to make a few more things requiring a different cooking technique to my usual. Whilst I don’t think I’ll ever buy a calf leg, or possibly even debone a duck, I will definitely try a few new things.

I wrote before about being scared of roasting a duck, and that experiment turning out deliciously well. And one of the other things I’ve never really attempted seriously before is sauces or custards with egg. Even making ice creams I try to avoid using custard based ones because cooking eggs like that scares me. I figure I’ll end up with scrambled eggs and ruin the whole thing. But I made a chocolate pavlova for Mothers’ Day and ended up with a whole bunch of egg yolks and decided it was the perfect time to make a pink grapefruit curd. Again, I enjoyed watching the magic of the yolks and grapefruit juice thicken and become creamy and turn from ingredients into an actual dish. So the next step was to make a sabayon sauce. Sabayon (or zabaglione) is a light and fluffy sauce, drink or dessert made using some form of alcohol and egg yolks as the main ingredients.

Things I’ve learnt in these two egg-based sauce dishes is that you need to be patient at first, slowly drizzling the hot liquid into the eggs and whisking first before putting it on the heat and whisking consistently at a brisk pace. But it’s definitely a trick worth trying, you really do feel there is a science behind cooking.

Given that it’s Autumn and the markets are full of pomegranates, this sabayon is pomegranate flavoured and paired with one of my favourite spirits – Gin. I again used the West Winds Sabre for it’s specific citrus notes, but if you can’t get your hands on it, substitute Bombay Sapphire. And like my last Gin dish, it uses crab meat. I had this frozen from our very successful crabbing trip in summer, but you can generally get your hands on crab or crab meat at most supermarkets. There’s something about gin and crab that just *work*, you know! I then put it under the grill to heat the crab and lightly toast the top of the sabayon. The end result is a toasty, airy, citrusy puff of rich sauce on top of the flaky crab meat. So. Good.

This was paired with a warm buckwheat salad. I think next time, I’d like to add a few plain salted tortilla chips as well, for a textural counterpoint.



Grilled Crab with Gin and Pomegranate Sabayon
2/3 cup West Winds Sabre Gin
4 tbsp pink grapefruit juice
2 pomegranates, seeded
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
300g cooked crab meat, picked over for cartilage and shell

Seed the pomegranates and reserve ¼ of the arils for the salad. Put the gin, grapefruit juice and pomegranate seeds into a small saucepan and simmer until the liquid has reduced to about ¼ of a cup.

Line a baking tray with paper and divide the crab meat into 4. Tightly pack with your hands into patties and set aside until sauce is ready.

Once the gin mixture has reduced, strain through a fine sieve into a glass bowl that you can set above simmering water. Set a small saucepan of water to simmer. Add the egg yolks to the reduced gin and whisk briskly for a few minutes to fully incorporate, then place over the simmering water. Whisk constantly and briskly until the sauce becomes light and fluffy, the colour will turn a pretty pale purple. It’ll take about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and drizzle the olive oil into the mixture, whisking slowly for a few minutes until emulsified. Taste and season as needed. Set aside until salad is ready and you can grill the crab.

Spoon the mixture over the crab and place under a pre-heated grill for 2-3 minutes until toasted and brown.
 

























Warm Pink Grapefruit, Zucchini and Buckwheat Salad
2/3 cup buckwheat
1 ½ cup water
½ tsp salt
Big pinch fresh black pepper
Olive oil
½ tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp coriander seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, diced
2/3 cup corn kernels
1 pink grapefruit, segmented and diced
1 tbsp tamari
2 silverbeet leaves, stripped and shredded
1 Avocado, sliced
Handful toasted almonds, roughly chopped
¼ of the pomegranate arils reserved from making the sabayon

Put the buckwheat, water, salt and pepper in a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until the buckwheat is cooked, but still chewy, around 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

In a frypan, heat a splash of olive oil and fry the garlic until translucent. Add the cumin, mustard seeds and coriander seeds, stir well to coat in the oily garlic mix. Add the zucchini and corn kernels and cook for 5-10 minutes until the zucchini is soft. Take off the heat.

Stir through the cooked buckwheat, tamari, grapefruit pieces and silverbeet leaves.

Serve with sliced avocado, toasted almonds and the reserved pomegranate arils on top.

 Gently remove the crab with sabayon patties and serve alongside

 

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Crab Pasta with a Gin and White Chocolate Sauce


I know that I suggested that you ‘cook’ a ceviche brulee for Valentine’s Day dinner, but I thought I’d also give you a second option. Also seafood. Also containing gin. And this one is a little more Valentine’s Day traditional in that it also contains chocolate! I’ve dabbled with savoury chocolate dishes a few time. This, so far, is my favourite. The sweetness of the crab pairs with the sweetness of the white chocolate and the red peppercorns provide just enough spice to temper against the sweetness. You’ll possibly have noticed I’m also really into gins at the moment. The one I used in this one is made in West Australia, so it might be a little harder for you to find. You can sub it in for a gin of your choice, but the citrusy hit that “Sabre” has is really suited to this dish. If you can get it, definitely give it a go, it’s really nice!

Given that Valentine’s Day is also soon – if you can’t find crab meat by Friday, I’ll also allow you to sub in prawns.

In the photos you’ll see I served this with a salad of leaves and sour cherries. The tartness of the cherries really pops with the richness of the pasta and makes it a complete meal. And given the gin and citrus, harks back to the Aviation cocktail that I’m a big fan of. That would be this dish’s perfect pre-dinner cocktail!
  



Crab Pasta with Gin and White Chocolate Sauce
200g crab flesh
¾ cup The West Winds“Sabre” Gin
Zest and juice of one lime
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp pepper corns
½ tsp sea salt
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 big cloves garlic, minced
50g white chocolate, finely chopped
1 tbsp butter
250g pasta

 
Cherry Salad
Mixed salad leaves
12 cherries, roughly chopped
½ zucchini, thinly sliced into rings
Assorted toasted nuts/seeds (I used pepitas, pine nuts, almonds, sunflower seeds)
Salt & pepper

 
Put a pot of salted water on to boil. When boiling, add the pasta to cook at the point where the garlic is cooked.

In a dry frypan, toast the coriander seeds for 30 seconds or so on medium heat until fragrant. Grind with the peppercorns. Set aside.

In the same pan, gently warm the olive oil and sautee the shallots for 5 minutes or so until translucent. Do not allow to colour. Add the garlic, salt, pepper and coriander seeds. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the lime zest, juice and gin, stir through really well and allow to reduce by about half – another 5 minutes or so.

Add the crab, stir well. Then mix in the white chocolate and butter, stirring frequently to allow everything to come together as the chocolate and butter melts.

At this point, the pasta should be al dente. Drain, then toss into the crab sauce. Serve immediately.
 
 

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Skamp's Krabby Patties


Watching cartoons is a guilty pleasure of mine. Despite being 31. I love old kids cartoons. I love Disney movies. I love adult cartoons like Archer. I love Spongebob Squarepants. Here’s a photo of me meeting Spongebob and Patrick Starr back in 2011.
 
 
And me with Lego Spongebob in 2009.

 
So when we went for our annual crabbing trip and we caught our full quota this year and I was thinking of the different ways of cooking with the crab, I decided one dish would be Krabbie Patties (which I’m pretty sure are actually beef in the cartoon). This is just a slightly different take on the prawn burgers I made as part of my Tapas Sliders Night (seriously, need to do another one of those!) and as such, if you don’t have crab meat you can substitute it with much-easier-to-find prawn. One day, I will get around to posting that recipe. It’s delicious. And those I usually serve with a mango salsa. So this I served with a mango guacamole.

I served these with bread to make sandwiches/burgers (I didn’t have buns at home but a nice soft bun would’ve been better), and then the next night we had tacos with the leftovers. It made 6 patties.

 

Skamp’s Krabby Patties
2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
¼ cup cornmeal
½ tsp smokey paprika
1 large clove garlic
1 ½ cups crab meat
2 eggs
2 tsp wholeseed mustard
1 sprig parsley
Salt and pepper (about 6-8 grinds of each)

Mango Guacamole
Avocado
Mango
Jalapeno
Salt & pepper
Juice from one lime

For the patties, put the eggs, mustard, garlic, paprika, parsley and salt and pepper into a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the cornmeal and panko and stir through. Gently fold through the crab meat, so you don’t break the pieces up too much. If the consistency is too wet, add a little more panko. Wet your hands, then form patties about palm size. Put on a plate and leave to ‘set’ for about 15 minutes. Enough time to make the guacamole.

Peel and de-seed the avocado, add to a heavy bowl with salt and pepper and lime, then mash with a fork to make as smooth or chunky as you like. Diced the mango and slice the jalapeno (remove the seeds/membranes if you don’t want it too hot) and stir through. Set aside.

Heat a frypan to medium high heat and add a thin layer of rice bran oil or other neutral oil with a  high smoke point. Allow the oil to heat, then carefully slide a few of the patties into the hot oil (don’t overcrowd the pan). Cook until golden, about 5 minutes, then flip and cook for another 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and cover to keep warm while you do the next patties.
 
Serve with buns/bread of your choice, salady ingredients and the mango guacamole.