Baked garlic crab (with a tinge of sadness)

Posted by Daryl Pereira

Christmas is coming up and we decided to eschew tradition and take up the $2.99 per lb offer on Dungeness crab at the local Asian market. The deal was gone but we had the fishmonger pull one of the crustaceans out of the tank.

That was the easy part.

We left the crab in the fridge and transfered to the freezer half an hour prior to cleaning. Now things got fun. This guy on YouTube makes cleaning a live crab look like a doddle.



He wasn't half as dazed as expected when I pulled him out of the bag, clawing wildly (and to anthropomorphize, I swear he was pissed off). Being a squeamish landlubber, I dropped him straight back in into the bag and started hyper-ventilating.

Plan number two. We boiled up some water in the largest pot we could find, adding a liberal amount of salt and plopped him in a maneuver that was more speed than grace. There was a dull squeal from the water (that I remember as a child), although I'm not sure exactly what caused it.

Ten minutes later we had par-boiled crab on our hands, which I could handle when doused in cold water. The top shell now came off easily and the rest of the cleaning went just like the afore-mentioned video. Phew.

I decided to follow this Recipezaar recipe for garlic crab. Half a head of garlic, a small onion and a couple of teaspoons of red chilly flakes when into the blender until finelly chopped. I only used about a quarter-cup of butter and about 3 tablespoons of oil. This mixture was baked in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown and then this mixture liberally applied to the crab. I added some sea salt and placed back in the oven for a further ten minutes.

A garnish of parsley and that was it. The sweetness of the crab contrasted well with the roasted garlic and onion. Even sucking the shell was a treat. We feasted on this with little more than a salad and some tortillas to soak up the buttery juice. I'm sure the simplest Christmas meal I've ever had, and truly memorable!

Footnote:

The taste for me was slightly marred by the thought that this Dungeness crab had put up a valiant battle to the last but his fate was as sealed as that of the lonely bull in the bullfight. They say you should see what happens to your dinner on the way to the table. In this case I found it tough to abstract the animal to talk about 'the meat' - I saw a noble animal of the sea whose time was up the day he got caught. BTW, I talk about the crab as a 'him' but this is mere speculation on my part.