King Crab Japanese-French Fusion
This is an excellent way to eat your crab. The crab will melt in your mouth as you experience the best dipping sauce I have ever created for eating crab. I have found that this sauce also makes for some very good sauteed mushrooms you can easily use in other dishes. I will provide some posts with recipes for these as well. Probably not the healthiest food on the planet, however, you offset that a bit with the valuable nutrients that you get from the crab and herbs. As my style of cooking has always been 50% recipe, 50% make it up as you go along, I have tried to explain why the ingredients are included as well as substitutions as I hope that you are able to use my guideline to make something you will enjoy even more when you create your very own version of this dish.
This is an excellent way to eat your crab. The crab will melt in your mouth as you experience the best dipping sauce I have ever created for eating crab. I have found that this sauce also makes for some very good sauteed mushrooms you can easily use in other dishes. I will provide some posts with recipes for these as well. Probably not the healthiest food on the planet, however, you offset that a bit with the valuable nutrients that you get from the crab and herbs. As my style of cooking has always been 50% recipe, 50% make it up as you go along, I have tried to explain why the ingredients are included as well as substitutions as I hope that you are able to use my guideline to make something you will enjoy even more when you create your very own version of this dish.
- ingredients:
- 1 splash soy sauce
- 8 whole butter, cube will include a recipe for roux
- 1 mirin use this to taste. i typically use about 50 ml (about 1/2 cup)
- 1 dash sake, dry (up to two dahses), (you can easily substit
- 1 tsp huajiao chinese pepper
- 1 whole peppercorns and 2 tb of whole black peppercorns
- bouquet garni this is simply an assortment of ... usually tied together with a string. you can use whatever you
- 2 cloves garlic depending on your taste.
- shiitake mushroom or other similar forrest mushroom, thinly sliced
- 4 king crab legs this highly depends on how much you may want to increase the amounts for the sauce slightly, (up to 6)
- 4 shiitake mushrooms stems removed and julienne.
- ingredients for roux:
- 1 for this recipe you should use 1/3 cup of flower
- 1 most chefs will use butter or a thick oil. you m.
- 1 just heat the roux mixture and cook on medium hea
- 1 roux is a simple french white sauce base that is .
- Carbohydrate 0.706068992537313 g
- Cholesterol 110.653333333333 mg
- Fat 6.79538907960199 g
- Fiber 0.0587108189881738 g
- Protein 42.1358383706468 g
- Saturated Fat 3.63333131840796 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (135g)
- Sodium 1955.99441293532 mg
- Sugar 0.64735817354914 g
- Trans Fat 1.06964161691542 g
- Calories 244 calories
Step-by-step
- First ad heavy olive oil and flour for Roux to skillet or wok, keeping in mind you want equal parts fat : oil. Or just toss in your cube of butter. (i prefer skillets and woks for how easy it is to "toss" the foods i am cooking in them, rather than stirring. you may find that using a cooking spoon in a small pot will work perfectly well for you. I doubt there will be any difference in flavor.) I recommend heating a skillet to medium and perhaps slightly higher than that in the wok. (Keep in mind, you need to give yourself enough time to julienne the garlic. Ideally, you will have that ready right before the oil is going to be at smoking point.) Ideally the temperature of the oil should be around 375-405 degree F.
- While the roux or butter starts to melt, julienne two cloves of garlic (or more to taste)
- Second, when the temperature of roux or butter reaches desired temperature add the julienned garlic and whole white / black peppercorns. You will want to stir or toss this mixture frequently. I like tossing because there is less chance of getting oil burn.
- We want to see the garlic getting slightly golden, you should also hear cracking from the whole peppercorns, this is not the same cracking the oil will be making. When you see a faint touch of gold (if you thought you saw it, you probably did) it is time to remove the peppercorns and garlic and put them aside and remove roux / butter from heat. Crush the white and black peppers into a powder with a motor or pestle or anything else you cold use for this. Now that they have been heated like this, they should not be hard to break up.
- Next this should be about the time to steam the King Crab Legs. There are three ways to do this. Some people simply roll up the legs in a paper towel, and add an extra minute until the shell is hot to the touch. Generally this only takes 1 minute to 1:45. When you use the microwave, although it still tastes good... The microwave can used to save you a little effort and quite a bit of time. This would be best to do if you haven't done anything with the legs until after the sauce is done. If you do go the microwave route, i would recommend rubbing the crab legs with some salt and well wrap it in dish towel or paper towel. This should help maintain the flavor, manage the moisture better and only your friends who are gourmet chef friends will be able to tell the difference.
- The second method is to simply boil the crab legs in a pot with water. You will want to let them boil on medium-high for about 7-10 minutes. This May cause the meat to be a little more rubbery. This again is something that will only be noticed by a professional chef.
- The third, and my favorite is to steam the legs. There are two ways to steam crab. One would be to hang the crab legs with paper clips (poked through the exoskeleton) to the top rack in the oven. On the bottom, you would want a pan (turkey pan is probably best) full of water (and if you want, a dash of salt and olive oil. You can of course add other things. This will not improve your flavor, obviously, but the legs will smell better before they are cracked open.) You will likely need to set to broil, and let it go for at least 12 minutes.
- The easier way of steaming your crab will be to set a steaming tray over a pot of boiling water. Place the crab legs on top of the steam tray, and let boil for about 10 minutes. Crab meat has already been cooked, all we need to do is warm it up again.
- While we are waiting for the crab to be ready, we want to finish up the sauce.
- Firstly, reheat the roux or butter. as soon as the butter is a liquid add a couple dashes of sake, 1/4 would probably be perfect. You will want to add your dashes of mirin now as well. You can pour 1/2 cup or more or less, depending on what flavor you would like this dish to take.
- Now it is time to add your Garni Bouquet. Take a good sniff before putting in the bouquet, to make sure that you wouldn't rather use some different herbs. Remember this is YOUR dish, not mine!
- After the garni goes in, we should re-add our garlic and our now pepper powders. Let us also add our mushrooms.
- We will leave this on a medium low heat for the time. Shell the crab and place the meat into the main skillet / wok.
- Let cooks on medium - high to high heat for 5 minutes.
- Serve.
Swapping standard dry sake for cheap cooking rice wine will introduce unwanted high fructose corn syrup and ruin the delicate balance of the sauce base. Skeptical cooks watching this unusual method unfold will notice several immediate danger points where the dish can easily go sideways. Paying close attention to the technical execution keeps the ingredients from burning before the crustacean even hits the heat.
- Watch the fat closely during the initial heating phase; if the butter reaches 375 degrees Fahrenheit and starts smoking heavily, dump it out and start over rather than trying to salvage acrid dairy solids.
- Crush the whole white and black peppercorns immediately after removing them from the hot fat while they remain brittle from the thermal shock.
- Steam the crab legs using a standard steamer basket over boiling water for exactly ten minutes to warm the meat gently without toughening the delicate protein fibers.
- Keep the heat at medium-low when simmering the shiitake mushrooms and aromatics so the alcohol from the mirin reduces properly without scorching the flour base.
Serve the finished shellfish alongside plain steamed short-grain white rice to absorb the rich, pepper-spiked pan juices without competing with the sweetness of the meat. Proper temperature management separates a balanced fusion sauce from a greasy bowl of scorched dairy.
