Skyscraper

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Soft Shell Crab

After eating soft shell crab at East Dynasty, Koko and Horoki, I thought "There must be a way to make this at home." Surely the restaurants don't use "fresh" soft shell crab that they get from the markets everyday. The fact that crabs only shed their shells during certain times of the year means restaurants can't possibly be buying them fresh and alive. This means that they must buy them frozen.

Hence, a trip to the local Asian grocery store yielded what I wanted to find. You can buy soft shell crab in packets. The packets I found were 400g for $7.50. So its roughly $19 for a kilo. With the crabs, you have to take off the top shell, which is quite hard and those lung fingers. They're bitter and not nice to eat. Apart from that, you can do anything you like the crab. Obviously, you can try to do what the restaurants do. A light coating of egg and flour and then fried gives the crabs a beautiful crunch. Then just quickly stir fried in salted egg and spring onion gives it a smooth coating of slightly salty egg and fresh taste of spring onion. It was utterly delicious and I couldn't stop eating it. Now I can eat a lot of it since its so much cheaper than eating about 4 pieces for $20 at a restaurant.

4 comments:

  1. Which Asian Grocery is that? Anyway, we did go for the Ferris Wheel this evening, after Varekai. Wasn't impressed, but our 4yo was over the moon!

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  2. Hi Marc, I got them from the Asian grocery in that hub along Buckingham Avenue, the two story building where you can park upstairs. I can't remember the name of the store, but all they sell is frozen stuff, like frozen fish balls, beef balls, crab balls, lobster balls, prawns, calamari etc and soft shell crab.

    There's two ferris wheels. The one on Birrarung Marr is quite large and the view from top would have been good I think. The one just behind Fed Square is a lot smaller and not as impressive.

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  3. I'm giddy with excitement! Soft shell crab is one of my ultimate seafood favourites.

    Fingers crossed I can find some down at the Springvale market!!!

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  4. Hi Ani, I love soft shell crabs too. You will definitely find some at the Springvale markets. Go forth and eat them.

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