Ingredients
1 stephen ceideburg
2 green onions, chopped
1 piece fresh ginger, 2-3 cm, grated
4 tbsp dry sherry
3 tbsp light soy sauce
3 blue crabs
400 g glutinous rice
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sugar
Directions
The Chinese have comfort food, too, and this dish qualifies. You will
need a large steamer; if you don't yet have one, they can be bought
cheaply in large Chinese or Vietnamese food stores where you can also
pick up the glutinous rice. The dish takes considerably longer to
cook than the previous recipes but little more of the cook's time. By
the time the rice is cooked, it is saturated with crab flavour.
Finely chop 2 green (spring) onions and grate 2-3 cms of fresh ginger.
Combine them with 4 tablespoons dry sherry and 3 tablespoons light soy
sauce. Prepare three green blue swimmers crabs. Chop two of them into
several pieces with a large knife or cleaver and crack the hardest
pieces of the shell with a hammer. Crack the third crab thoroughly
all over but do not chop up. Pour the sherry-soy sauce mixture over
the crabs and leave to marinate for an hour. Wash 400 grams glutinous
rice in several changes of water until the water runs clear.
Put the rice into a saucepan and pour over it 1.5 L water. Bring to
the boil and boil for 5 minutes. Drain.
In the bottom of a heatproof dish at least 12 cm deep and of a size
to fit into your steamer, pack in the chopped crab pieces, reserving
the marinade. Pour the rice over the top and pack it down. Press the
intact crab into the top of the rice. To the marinade, add a further
tablespoon soy sauce and a tablespoon oil, teaspoon salt and 1
teaspoon sugar. Pour over the crabs and rice.
Put the dish in the steamer over boiling water and steam for 35-40
minutes. Serve. Diners deal first with the top crab, now half buried
in rice, then fish around, for the rest of the crab pieces in rice.
From an article by Meryl Constance in The Sydney Morning Herald,
5/18/93. Courtesy Mark Herron.
Servings: 6 servings
Chinese Crab Rice Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Asian; Chinese; Crab; Fish; Rice
The History of Recipes
It is possible to trace the history of written recipes back into history, in truth as far back into recorded history as early Egypt, and possibly even further. Having said that, mostly, these old cookbooks were just very basic pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for preparing meals.
The truth of the matter is, the most ancient recipe discovered, according to food historians are a few clay tablets in ancient Sumerian describing the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel blissful. Later on, in The time of the roman empire around 25BC a man called Apicius compiled a few documents which described recipes prepared by his fellow Romans. He tells us how the roman meals were divided into hors d`oeuvres, entrees and afters, something we still use today. Aspicius also informs us how the Roman cooks were skilled in the use of a good variety of herbs, including a few that are still present in modern kitchens for example thyme, fennel and parsley. Later, in the fifteenth century, the Crusaders brought back many new foods and herbs from the holy lands, including spices such as parsley and basil. The introduction of these new foods and spices created an outbreak in manuscripts on cookery, most of which still exist in private cookery archives. The arrival of television brought us celebrity chefs and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. Which pretty much brings us to the present day and the invention of the internet, permitting us all to access massive numbers of recipes such as those found on this web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Chinese Crab Rice recipe.
