Chinese crab rice

 
                             CHINESE CRAB RICE
 
 Recipe By     : 
 Serving Size  : 6    Preparation Time :0:00
 Categories    : Chinese                          Fish
 
   Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
 --------  ------------  --------------------------------
                         Stephen Ceideburg
    2                    Green onions, chopped
    1                    Piece fresh ginger, 2-3 cm,
                         -grated
    4       tb           Dry sherry
    3       tb           Light soy sauce
    3                    Blue crabs
  400       g            Glutinous rice
    1       tb           Soy sauce
    1       tb           Oil
    1       t            Sugar
 
   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.
  
 
 
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