Thai Pepper Garlic Crab

How would you feel if the shop owner just threw your freshly purchased bag of sea-food or fish across the store. In most places it would cause an outrage, at a particular place in Seattle it would cause a hundred camera flashes to fire. Welcome to the famous Pike place market.

Being a foodie I just love going to the Seattle Pike Place market. I love roaming inside the market eating stuff from across the world, buying the freshest sea-food money can buy and just being there. My husband also makes his pilgrimage to the first ever Starbucks store in the world across the street which is obviously called “Store No.1”.

In my last trip I picked up some great fresh Dungeness crab which is a local crab found around the coast of Washington state. I also picked up some leek. I cooked it as soon as I got home, no meaning is buying fresh and then keeping it refrigerated.

Ingredients

1. 1 medium sized crab around 5 lbs cut into pieces
2. 1 medium sized onion chopped
3. 1 leek chopped
4. 1 spring onion chopped
5. 10 cloves of garlic crushed
6. 2 tbsp. black pepper freshly crushed
7. 2 tbsp. soya sauce
8. 2 tbsp. chili garlic sauce
9. Salt
10. Sugar

Procedure

Heat oil in a pan on a medium heat. Scald crab over the hot oil and stir continuously until the crab starts to turn color. Remove the crabs now.

To the same oil  add chopped onion and crushed garlic. Fry for about 1-2 mins till you get a nice aroma of fried garlic. Add half of the chopped leek and spring onion. Sauté for a while.

In a bowl take half a cup of water and mix soya sauce,chili-garlic sauce along with salt and a pinch of sugar. Add this sauce mixture to the pan and bring it to a boil. Add crabs and cook it covered for about 5 mins. By that time crab should be done.

Check the seasoning and add crushed black pepper powder. Throw in the rest of the chopped leek and spring onion and or stir fry for about 2-3 mins.

Serve with noodles or fried rice.

Crab is best had when no one is watching you. It’s difficult to maintain decency when you are fighting with a 10 legged creature. Just be wild and ensure no meat is left behind however, hard it is to get it out from the shell.