Passport & Plate - Typhoon Shelter Crab
Hong Kong | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
• 15 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp peanut or rice bran oil
• 4 Blue Swimmer Crabs, about 1.2kgs, uncooked
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• ½ cup peanut or rice bran oil, extra
• 8 eschalots, peeled and very finely sliced
• 6cm piece fresh ginger, grated
• 3 bird’s-eye chillies, finely sliced
• 3 dried chillies, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp black beans, or yellow beans, finely chopped
• 4 spring onions (shallots), sliced thinly diagonally
• ¼ cup (60ml) water
• ¼ cup (60ml) shaoxing (chinese rice wine)
• Steamed rice, to serve
How to prepare this recipe1. Finely chop the garlic and place in a small bowl. Pour enough cold water over the garlic to cover by 2cm, then soak it for 30 minutes. Carefully drain the garlic, then pat dry on paper towel. This will help to crisp up the garlic.
Heat a wok over medium high heat and add 2 tbsp oil. Fry the garlic for 3 minutes until it is golden brown and crispy. Remove the garlic, drain on paper towel and set aside.
2. Prepare and clean the crabs. Turn the crab over and remove the hinged ‘apron’. Turn the crab back and remove the top shell. Set aside the top shell. Scoop out the stomach and remove the mouth parts, eyes and gills, then pat dry. Use a large knife to cut the crab in half, then cut through each piece to remove each leg. Crack some of the bigger pieces and the legs with the back of a large knife or a nutcracker. Dust the pieces with cornflour.
Heat the remaining oil in a wok over high heat and fry the crab pieces, including the top shell, in batches, for 5 minutes until the shells are red and the crab is cooked through. Remove the crab from the wok and set aside.
3. Add the sliced eschalots (baby onions), ginger, fresh and dried chillies to the wok and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the soy and black beans and half the spring onions and stir-fry for another 30 seconds.
4. Return the crab to the wok and add the water and continue to cook for 1 minute. Add the remaining spring onions, rice wine and half the fried garlic to the wok and stir it briefly before taking the wok off the heat.
5. Spoon the crab onto a large platter with a couple of shells to decorate. Scatter the remaining fried garlic over the top. Serve with some steamed rice on the side and make sure you supply nutcrackers so people can enjoy every last mouthful.
The story behind this recipeI was in an old sampan, steered into the middle of an old Hong Kong typhoon shelter by an old woman, there to experience an old tradition.
The manner in which I had come to be there started in a Kowloon bar with a local man called Hugh. It was Hugh who told me about the freshly caught seafood cooked on sampans to waiting customers. It was Hugh who took me to Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter for a meal.
Hugh haggled loudly with the wizened sampan owner before we were allowed aboard. Our sampan then made its way past a hundred or so others, dimly lit and hunkered down, into the centre of the typhoon shelter. Before too long we were surrounded by brightly lit cooking boats.
Each sampan cooked a different meal. Hugh ordered and we watched as each dish was flash-fried before being handed over to us, the sampans nudging gently together. Hugh asked just one question: Did we like crab?
Typhoon Shelter Crab was always made with the smaller, lesser specimens that couldn’t be sold throughout the day but nothing prepared me for the perfection of the meal. Cooked in minutes with chilli kicking the back of our throats and garlic, shallots, ginger and bean paste scenting the air, it was as unpretentious as its surroundings. Served on a plate with a couple of nutcrackers to help winkle out every morsel, it was gloriously messy. At one point the old woman handed us a roll of toilet paper with which to clean ourselves.
By that time, we didn’t care. We were seduced by the location, the warm night air, the clatter of woks and by the food. Another sampan came by with singers and musicians who, in the style of Chinese opera, played “Oh Carol”. It seemed entirely fitting.
Thirty years later, every sampan has gone. Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter now houses yachts and its iconic meal is only found in restaurants. But on that warm August night with wonky table and hard chairs and lack of ceremony, we dined like kings as old Hong Kong revealed itself to us, a time and setting no longer there
