Corn and Crab Soup Recipe

This crab soup , simply called súp cua in Vietnamese, was my attempt to finish the leftover crab from last night's dinner. We bought six crabs for the two people who actually eat seafood in our house, so there was a fair amount unfinished. I prepared cua rang me (Vietnamese tamarind crab) and that's basically all we ate with a little salad on the side. We were so full by the end of the meal that we could not finish the dish. It was our Mount Everest and we didn't conquer it!  

I didn't want to waste the delicious crab, so I cracked the rest and gathered the crab meat. I had chicken stock in the freezer and I thickened it with a little corn starch. I added frozen corn and green onions to the soup and the result was just as I expected: mildly sweet, velvety and wonderfully soothing. Simply perfect!

Fermented Black Bean Crab Recipe

We had a giant seafood feast last weekend, and believe it or not, we cooked 12 whole crabs. The main flavoring of this dish was fermented black beans, which are very common in Asian cooking. I also added fresh green chiles and a lot of Thai basil leaves. 

The crabs are prepared in two steps. First, they're fried, and then to finish them off, they are stir-fried with the fermented bean sauce and a bit of cooking wine. It gets a bit messy around the stove, but the result is worth the effort!

Sauteed Crab with Ginger and Basil

It never occurred to me until today that the reason I don't sauté crab that often is because the preparation can be very messy. Removing the abdominal flaps, separating the back fin, gathering the crab "butter" and corals from the inside of the crabs in a bowl and cracking the claws aren't the most glamorous of tasks. As I was chatting with the fish monger at my local market, he offered to clean the crabs for me and said he would do it whenever I feel like eating crab. How sweet of him!

I ran home and immediately sautéed the crab claws. To give the seafood dish a nice fragrance, I cooked the crab with freshly grated ginger, roasted garlic, sweet paprika, cayenne powder, a squeeze of lemon juice, sweet basil leaves and dry white wine. I also find that the addition of shallots and a bit of butter enhances just about any dish.

The crab was cooked perfectly; the meat came right out of the shell. And rather than getting messy eating crab at a restaurant, isn't it way better to pig out in the comfort of your own home?

Cua Rang Muoi (Vietnamese Salted Crab Recipe)

I love cooking seafood, but I don’t always get the chance because of the number of vegetarians in my house. So when I do prepare seafood, I make a point of getting the freshest ingredients I can, and today that was crab.

Cua rang muối is one of my favorite recipes for preparing crab. The Vietnamese name literally translates to "crab toasted (roasted) in salt crust". The preparation is quite messy but the cooking time is fairly fast. The main ingredients are whole crabs (of course), freshly cracked black pepper, coarse sea salt, garlic, jalapeño chile peppers, green onions and tapioca starch. When cooked properly, the strong smell of seafood shouldn't bother anyone around with a seafood phobia. And for those of you who love seafood as much as I do, you’re in for a treat!

Don't they look like dentist tools?

Vietnamese Asparagus Crab Soup (Sup Mang Cua Recipe)

Súp măng tây nấu cua (white asparagus crab soup) was always a festive dish when I was a child. We would have it whenever my parents had non-Vietnamese friends to our house for dinner. I would help with cracking the crab and gathering the crab meat. Corn starch, used as a thickening agent, gives the velvety, thick broth gives the dish a unique texture. While white asparagus doesn't provide a lot of color contrast to the crab, it does complement the flavor quite well.

The authentic version of this soup requires shark fin, but given how expensive it is, crab alone is used instead. The dish still has a luxurious quality, and as such, white asparagus crab soup often appears on the menu at Vietnamese weddings. Now you don't have to crash a Vietnamese wedding to try this dish; make it the next time you throw a dinner party, and I guarantee it will be the highlight of the meal.