Yellow Bittern’s Crab with Homemade Mayonnaise and Winter Leaves
This yellow bittern’s crab with homemade mayonnaise and winter leaves is so simple, so perfect.
SERVES
4
PEOPLE
PREP TIME
30
MINUTES
COOKING TIME
30
MINUTES
Ingredients
1 cooked brown crab (see recipe)
Homemade mayonnaise
A little salad of seasonal leaves
Salad Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt
Method
Remove the claws from the crab.
Crack the claws and extract every scrap of white meat. Put into a bowl.
Hold the crab with the underside uppermost and lever out the centre portion – I do this by catching the little lip of the projecting centre shell against the edge of the table and pressing down firmly.
The Dead Man’s Fingers (lungs) usually come out with this central piece but check in case some are left in the body. If so, remove and discard them.
Press your thumb down over the light shell just behind the eyes so that the shell cracks slightly, and then the sac which is underneath can be removed easily and discarded.
Everything else inside the body of the crab is edible.
Scoop out the brown meat from the shell and put into a separate bowl. Taste each and tweak the seasoning if necessary.
To make the salad dressing, whisk all ingredients together just before the salad is to be eaten.
To serve, put a generous dollop of white and brown crab meat side-by-side on the plate with some homemade mayonnaise and a generous pinch full of dressed leaves and maybe a segment of lemon.
Simple and utterly delicious when each of the elements are fresh and lovely.
Cooking the crab:
All types of crab are best cooked in seawater. Alternatively, cook in well-salted freshwater.
For common crab, put the crab into a deep saucepan, cover with cold or barely lukewarm water, using 175g of salt to every 2.3 litres of water.
This may sound like an incredible amount of salt, but try it: the crab will taste deliciously sweet.
Cover the saucepan, bring to the boil and then simmer from there on, allowing 15 minutes for the first 450g, and 10 minutes for the second and third (I’ve never come across a crab bigger than that!).
We usually pour off two-thirds of the water halfway through cooking and then cover and steam the crab for the remainder of the time.
As soon as it is cooked, remove it from the saucepan and allow to get cold.
