Black Pepper Crab in Western and Asian Styles

Two meanest black pepper crabs you could find!

Black Pepper Crab (Western Style)

   Tropical lands' Asian developed very rich food due to their living environment produced so many exotic plants and edible living creatures. After developing my western palate, these days I prefer to develop recipes based on the best of the east and west. 

   From my acquaintance, I found that American that stayed in the interior zone really doesn't like fish that much, I met many of them who couldn't even tolerate fish sauce. Whereas, I was so surprised to see Kiwi white people could take fish sauce without any problem due to New Zealand is surrounded by seas.

   Our palette that could accept different food at ease is just like how we could speak different languages and accept other races like one of our family members.

   Black pepper crab originated from a Singaporean chef, then it passed around and turned into different variations of black pepper crab. Anyway, every piece of Singapore land is expensive like gold, perhaps there are only a few places in Singapore you could find pepper vines, one should be found in Singapore Botanical Garden and perhaps some could be found in rich Singaporeans' backyard due to they have some connections with Sarawakiens, either they were Sarawakiens or they have best friends from Sarawak. I knew there was a Singaporean asked his Sarawakien friend to obtain his pepper vine cuttings, my dad was the person who gave this relative some cuttings. 

   

   One of the best quality peppercorn and nearest place for Singaporeans to get 

peppercorn is by importing Sarawak peppercorn.

   Why I write this recipe because it was requested by a Chinese friend from Mainland China, as the classic black pepper crab recipes could be found easily from websites or Youtube, thus I developed two fusion recipes for this site - a western inclined recipe for Europeans and an adapted recipe for Asian

Date: Oct 18th, 2017

Recipe: 78

Ingredients (2 portions):

Deep fried crab legs

10 Snow crab legs,  get rid of shell, use the upper part of meat

Reduced crab stock, batter

2 tsp Curry leaves powder, dry under the sun, grind into powder

2 tbsp Potato starch, batter

2 tbsp Cornstarch, batter

2 tbsp Tapioca starch, batter

2 tbsp Wheat flour, batter

2 tsp Japanese sushi vinegar, batter

1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce, batter

3 tbsp Sesame oil, batter

1 Egg yolk, batter

TT Salt, cayenne, and pepper, batter

Oil for deep frying

Black pepper crab sauce

100g Smoked crab shell, smashed, crab oil, reduced to 50ml Smoked crab oil

60ml oil, crab oil

1000g Smoked crab shell, smashed, crab stock, reduced to 500ml stock

1000ml Water, stock

1 Calamansi lime

1 tbsp Light soy sauce

2 tsp Sugar

1 tbsp Mirin

1 tbsp Sake

1/4 tsp Curry powder
1/2 tsp Miso paste

1 tbsp Crushed black pepper, toasted

1 tsp Crushed white pepper, toasted

3 cloves Garlic, minced

30g Butter,  30g cut into cubes for monte

TT Salt, sugar, fish sauce and vinegar

Baby cilantro, garnishing

Radish, fine julienne, salad

Cucumber, fine julienne, salad

Ginger torch bud, fine julienne, salad

Kaffir lime, zest, garnishing

Method:

1. To prepare crab oil, boil and simmer the smoked 

    crab shell with oil until red.

2. To prepare the crab stock, boil, simmer and reduce

    water with smoked crab shell, sieve.

3. To prepare black pepper sauce, sweat garlic with 40ml

    crab oil, add black and white toasted crushed pepper, 
    sugar and curry powder, deglaze with sake, add 200ml 
    reduced stock and the rest of the seasoning. Reduced slightly, 
    check seasoning, monte to thicken the sauce.

4. Mix the batter, deep fry 2/3 of them in batches,

    blisk the crispy crackers into the crumb.

5. Layer the crumb on a baking tray.

6. Immerse crab leg to the batter, roll over the crumb.

7. Deep fry until golden brown

8. Toss the radish, cucumber and ginger torch buds with 10ml

    crab oil, a pinch of salt and few drop of calamansi lime

9. Served the deep fried crab leg with black pepper sauce,

    crispy sushi kumara pan fry cake and salad, garnish with

    baby cilantro and kaffir lime zest.

Black Pepper Crab (Asian Style)

Date: Oct 18th, 2017

Recipe: 79

Ingredients (4 portions):

Deep fried crab legs

2 Mud crabs, clean and wash, cut into pieces, season with salt and 

Reduced crab stock, batter

2 tsp Curry leaves powder, dry under the sun, grind into powder

2 tbsp Potato starch, batter

2 tbsp Cornstarch, batter

2 tbsp Tapioca starch, batter

2 tbsp Wheat flour, batter

2 tsp Japanese sushi vinegar, batter

1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce, batter

3 tbsp Sesame oil, batter

1 Egg yolk, batter

TT Salt, cayenne, and pepper, batter

Oil for deep frying

Flour for dusting

Black pepper crab sauce

100g Smoked crab shell, smashed, crab oil, reduced to 50ml Smoked crab oil

60ml Sesame oil, crab oil

1000g Smoked crab shell, smashed, crab stock, reduced to 500ml stock

1000ml Water. stock

1 Calamansi lime

1 tbsp Light soy sauce

2 tsp Sugar

2 tbsp Mirin

2 tbsp Sake

1 tsp Miso paste

1/4 tsp Curry powder

1 Salted duck egg yolk, boil, mashed

1 tbsp Crushed black pepper, toasted

1 tsp Crushed white pepper, toasted

3 cloves Garlic, minced

1 Shallot, julienne

30g Butter,  cut into cubes, monte

TT Salt, sugar, fish sauce and vinegar

Baby cilantro, garnishing

Ginger torch bud, fine julienne, salad

Kaffir lime, zest, garnishing

Method:

1. To prepare crab oil, boil and simmer the smoked 

    crab shell with oil until red.

2. To prepare the crab stock, boil, simmer and reduce

    water with smoked crab shell, sieve.

3. To prepare black pepper sauce, sweat garlic and shallot 
    with crab oil, add black and white toasted crushed 

    pepper, and curry powder, then add the duck egg

    mash and sugar, when the fragrant has released, deglaze 

    with sake, add 200ml stock and the rest of the seasoning. 
    Reduce, check seasoning.

4. Mix the batter, dust the crab with flour, dip in the batter

    piece by piece, deep fry until golden brown.

5. Heat up the black pepper sauce, mix in deep fried crab

    pieces. Lastly, monte with the butter cubes.

9. Garnish with baby cilantro, ginger torch bud, and 

    kaffir lime zest.