Thai Chili Crab

I'm pretty excited about today's post because I'm happy to relive the experience via these photos. This meal is from back in 2020, the weekend of Halloween. It was a freakin' delicious dinner and I'm so glad it's currently Dungeness crab season because I want to eat this again. The season is typically from November through June, though, I read somewhere that the start of this season was delayed somewhat and there have been some issues related to migratory period of whales; I don't know, everything has been messed up due to the events of 2020 so nothing surprises me anymore.

Though this recipe could be made using regular blue crabs, the beauty of using Dungeness crab is that they're humongous so you don't even have to dig and excavate and mine for the meat. It just falls out and there's so much of it.

Ingredients [serves 4]:
2 Dungeness crabs
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
½" knob ginger, minced
1 lemongrass stalk, finely sliced
5 to 7 Thai chili peppers, sliced
¼ cup Thai roasted chili paste
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Dungeness crab is best eaten fresh and they don't stay alive for v. long outside of the tank so they should be eaten within a day of purchase.

To prep them for cooking, choose a pot that's large enough to hold their bodies. These guys were pretty humongous so I had to pick my biggest stock pot. The pot needs to also be deep enough to allow the crabs to be completely submerged.

Steam them for 15 to 20 minutes (about 7 minutes per pound) until their shells have turned red and the meat is cooked through.

Drain them and then give them a quick rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process. At this point, you can serve them whole and let your dinner guests dig in like savages or you can do what I did and process them before serving. There are other better resources out there for how to properly dismantle these guys, but I'll explain my process anyway. My favorite tool for this was kitchen shears and my own bare hands.

I started by removing the main back shell and setting them aside. I stored them upside down (the outside of the shell facing down) so that I could preserve the tomally for later. Then I removed the legs and claws. Then, I took the shears and cut the body into quarters. I piled everything onto a serving platter - which was just a sheet pan in this case.

The sauce is something that can be assembled while the crabs are boiling. Heat a pan over medium and add oil, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and Thai chili peppers and gently saute until you can really smell the aromatics and the garlic is soft.

Stir in the chili paste, soy sauce, and fish sauce, warm through for about five minutes, and that's the sauce; done.

This meal is best served with fluffy jasmine rice and a vegetable of choice. In addition to the sauce, I chopped some fresh cilantro and some scallions to also scatter on top.

The crab meat is subtly sweet and meaty and delicious. The sauce is super savory and balanced and a great complement for the crab. A little bit of oniony flavor from the scallions and an herbaceous green bite from the cilantro just ties it all together.

The rice serves as a blank canvas for these strong flavors to be enjoyed with. I made some morning glory to accompany the meal, since we needed some veg.

Oh, and don't forget to mix some rice into the tomally inside the top shells. This is a special chef's treat.

Here's the recipe page: