#crab porrridge

[ovenbirdonwheels]

Crab Porridge

This is a deceptively easy dish to make… it’d been going on in my head for a while to make a crab porridge. Crab congee or porridge is absolutely huge in Singapore, Malaysia, HK, and basically any where on earth with populations of Chinese people and quality seafood. The problem with crab porridge is that it often tends to be sock-it-into your face heavy. Smoky, because it’s often cooked in clay pots over charcoal flames. And pretty predictable. This recipe is really a twist on a pure crab porridge, which usually uses a dose of chicken stock and loads of crabs, if little else. The base of my recipe is really a fish stock made from cooking the heads and bones and trimmings of two Sea Breams, a chicken broth, and plenty of vegetables. The crab comes in right at the end, to flavour it, and add to a complex, light and aromatic broth. It’s cooked completely in clay pot, but not over charcoal flames. It’s important to remember to use only FEMALE crabs, with plenty of roe as that adds to the overall flavour of the porridge.

Ingredients

For the chicken broth

1 1.2kg chicken, whole

1 tsp sea salt

4 garlic cloves, crushed, skin on

½ tsp white pepper corn

1 in ginger, sliced into thin rounds

1.7 litres of water

For the Sea Bream stock

Bones, heads, and trimmings of two sea breams (you can replace this with any white fish which aren’t overly assertive; threadfins for example)

½ yellow onion, chopped roughly

3 cloves garlic, chopped roughly

1-in ginger, sliced into thin rounds

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp Shao Xing wine

2 tsp sesame oil

4 litres of water

1 tsp ground white pepper

For the Crab Porridge

2 600-700g Sri Lankan mud crabs, female, shelled, cleaned and quartered

6 1-in lengths of yellow chives

½ leek, sliced lengthwise, halved

1-in ginger, sliced into thin rounds

1 spring onion, root and stem halved lengthwise. You can also add 1/2 a chopped onion to add sweetness to the porridge

2 cups Jasmine rice, washed thrice

Ground white pepper, to taste

Coriander leaves and chopped Spring onion to garnish

Instructions

Make the chicken broth. Rub the chicken all round with sea salt, add the rest of the ingredients, and cook the chicken in a double boiler for 45 minutes over Low flame, and rest covered for 15 minutes. Strain chicken stock and set aside. You should have about 1.5 litres, or around 6-7 cups of chicken stock.

Make the sea bream stock. Add the sesame oil to a pot and bring it up to heat. Sauté the onions, garlic, ginger until lightly browned. Add the fish, and fry them. Using a blow torch, you can char some of the skin and fish head, and particularly the fatty collar cuts. Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, wine, and ground white pepper, coat the fish well. Once the fish starts char slightly, add the water. Bring it to a rolling boil, turn it to Low, cover the pot, and cook for 45 minutes. Once done, strain the stock and set aside. You should have about 20 cups or so of broth. Add another 5 cups of water to bring it up to 25 cups worth of sea bream stock.

Combine both stock into a a large pot. You should have around 30-35 cups worth of combined stock. Get your claypot ready. Wash the jasmine rice, and add the ginger, and pour in the combined stock. To start off, you’ll need 20 cups of stock to 2 cups of rice. Bring the pot to boil slowly, starting with Low heat and progressively working it up to medium. Cook the rice slowly, stirring once in a while to Ensure that the bottom doesn’t burn. Progressively add more stock, a cup at a time, until the porridge reaches your desired consistency. My favourite would be the HK congee style, which will take about 2-2.5 hours to reach, and use up 30 cups of stock at least. If you prefer the wetter porridge style, you’ll need all the stock that you’ve prepared.

Add in the crab pieces, shell first. Cover, and cook over Low heat for 15 minutes. That should be all you need to cook the crab sufficiently without overdoing it.

Remove the claypot from the heat, add the garnish and serve. Done!