Bring out the zing in crab curry

Delicious DIY

A well-chosen sparkling wine brings out the zing in everything – even curry.

The refreshing acidity of Brut bubbles offers an ideal medium within which to explore spiceladen, Asian-style dishes. The wine’s tartness cuts the richness of coconut milk-based sauces, enhances the pleasant, tongue-tingling sensations inherent in ginger and cardamom, and tones down chilli’s heat to reveal fruity flavour beyond the burn.

Photograph by Theana Calitz

 

So far so good, but before you rush off to pair a bunny chow with the first bottle of bubbly you can lay your hands on, remember that oak can clash with the spice giving a bitter, harsh aftertaste. Wooded warnings aside, it is hard to beat a Cap Classique and curry lingering lunch.

Crab and prawn curry is sufficiently celebratory to hold its own against the charms of a serious sparkling wine. Prawns we all know how to work with – as long as you have taken out the central digestive tract you really can’t go wrong – but many cooks are less familiar with how to handle crab.

First-time crab cooks should know that the most flavoursome flesh is to be found in the white meat of the claws and legs rather than the brown body meat, so it makes sense to go for a crab variety that has big claws and long, fat legs. The meanest mega-clawed bad ass in the business is the Alaskan king crab which will almost invariably have been killed, cleaned, blanched and flash frozen at sea.

Sadly, freezing does reduce the intensity of the flavour that you would find if you cooked a live crab. For a big-clawed local-is-lekker crab, why not try the Namibian Atlantic king crab which can be bought alive in many South African fishmongers and is considerably kinder on the carbon miles than its frozen American cousin.

I am too much of a woes to do it, but those who can cope with the in-yourface meat-is-murder moment of working with live crab will need to place the beast in a pot of salted water with enough liquid to keep it completely submerged, plus an additional 10cm or so on top of that. A well-fitting lid and a hard heart are essential ingredients. Small crabs need to boil for about 10 to 12 minutes while larger ones may need up to 20 minutes. Once cooked, you will need to scrape out the gills with a spoon and remove the intestine. (Now do you see why I am advocating a trip to the frozen-food section of the fish monger?)

Once you have your crab meat, the process of sautéing the spices and mixing in the tomatoes and coconut milk takes mere moments. However you get your curry to the table, there is something very cheering about a meal that you know in advance will leave you with sauce all over your face. Plus it is one of the very few epicurean events which requires the diner to pick up both a mallet and/or a pair of pliers. DIY at its most delicious.

CRAB CURRY
SERVES FOUR

2 T olive oil
3 t fennel seeds
6 curry leaves
2 t black mustard seeds
5 green cardamom pods, crushed, husks removed
1 t cumin seeds
2cm fresh ginger, grated
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 medium white onion, finely chopped
2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
2 t turmeric
4 T masala
6 ripe tomatoes, grated
2 T butter
250g prawns, whole, cleaned and shelled
4 whole, cooked crab claws per person
1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
3 T brown tamarind dissolved in one cup of water
400g picked white crabmeat (i.e. cleaned and shelled) fresh coriander

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan and add the fennel seeds, curry leaves, mustard seeds, cardamom pods, cumin, ginger, garlic, onion and chilli.
2. Fry on a medium heat until the onions are soft and then add the butter, turmeric and masala.
3. After a minute or so, pour in the tomatoes and allow the mixture to cook down into a thick sauce for about five minutes.
4. Add the coconut milk, the crab claws and the prawns and let it simmer for about five minutes.
5. Add the tamarind and simmer for approximately 10 minutes.
6. Add the white crabmeat and simmer for a further five minutes.
7. Season to taste and garnish with coriander