This is one of my all-time favorites:
my dad’s Ginger & Scallion Crab
and it might just be
the easiest holiday crowd pleaser you can make.
It’s not as hard as you might think it is,
and with just a couple of ingredients,
you can make restaurant quality crab right at home.
We’ll start by learning how to prepare a live crab.
Today, I'm cooking a crab
that's about 2 lbs.
It's alive.
First, I'm going to wash the crab.
I mainly want to wash the shell, the legs, and the claws.
I'll scrub it with this sponge.
Set it down.
Give it a scrub like this.
Clean all around the legs and everything.
We’ll clean the crab with a sponge and water.
"What type of crabs are best for this dish?"
There are lots of great varieties of crab.
Some crabs are imported from places like Australia.
Those are great.
These are not the highest quality crabs.
Local American crabs.
My dad always recommends using live crab
because it’s the freshest,
but you can use whatever available to you.
Here, he’s using mud crab,
but you can use any kind of crab
or even crab legs.
If you want sustainable seafood options,
check the “Seafood Watch” website at seafoodwatch.org
Last time, when I processed the lobster,
some friends said that I should have knocked it out first,
so we'll listen to those friends today.
We'll chill the crab in the freezer,
and let the cold knock it out before we process it.
Let's put it in the freezer.
My dad puts the crab in the freezer for 30 minutes
to knock it out.
Meanwhile, we’ll move on to our super important aromatics.
Let's cut the ginger.
I washed this.
1.5-2 oz of ginger.
If you prefer to peel your ginger, you can scrape it off.
Scrape the peel off like this.
With a smaller knife,
we’ll carefully scrape the skin off to peel the ginger.
You can slice the ginger thinly, or smash it.
I'll show you both methods.
Thin slices.
You can choose to slice the ginger.
Or, you can smash it.
Like this piece.
Or smash a larger piece.
If you want to eat the ginger, cut thin slices.
The smashed ginger is harder to pick up
as it's in small pieces.
But the smashed ginger will release a lot more flavor.
I'll cut a few more slices.
The ginger is delicious!
We'll slice these.
Set these aside.
Green onions.
Give the white parts a quick smash.
We’ll first smash the white parts of the green onion
then slice into roughly two-inch segments.
We have about 2 oz.
What does the smashing do?
The smashing helps the flavors release better.
It's a whole big piece of green onion here.
Set those aside.
We'll use 2 cloves of garlic.
We’ll smash and peel our cloves of garlic.
Just mince them.
They don't need to be as fine as paste.
Set this aside too.
Now, we’ll create the amazing sauce.
Our ingredients are cut up.
Now, I'll mix up the seasoning.
Oyster sauce will enhance the crab's umami flavor.
For the sauce, we’ll use 2 tbsp of oyster sauce,
2 tbsp of light soy sauce, 1 tsp of dark soy sauce,
a 1/4 tsp of white pepper, and a 1/2 tsp of sugar.
Then we’ll mix.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
After 30 minutes in the freezer, the crab is ready to be cut.
All right, friends.
By now, the crab has been knocked out in the cold freezer.
Now, we'll peel the shell off.
These are the legs.
Just pull it off here.
Pull?
Yes, just pull.
See?
We’ll first rip off the shell of the crab,
pouring out the liquid inside.
See that?
We've pried off the shell.
Pull out the gills, we don't want those.
Discard the gills.
We don't want them.
Pull them right off.
Just pull them.
They come right off.
Let's cut off the legs.
Then we’ll forcefully chop off the legs
at the highest joint with a cleaver.
Nice and neat.
Open up the body.
We’ll cut the body right in half.
Do you see these lines here?
Cut the body apart along those lines.
Here.
Then cut those halves into smaller pieces.
At a bit of an angle, following those lines.
Just go along the lines.
Put them aside.
Same with the other half of the body.
Use the belly to the heel of the knife.
Don't use the tip of the knife.
Here, too.
Heel of the knife.
We’ll continue cutting in the same way
with the other half of the body.
Here, we have 4, so 8 pieces total.
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For the legs, you can cut them with shears.
Or you can chop with a knife.
Are you discarding those?
Yes, we don't need the tips of the legs.
"How do you pick the best crabs?"
Get the big ones.
When we were at the store today,
the worker used a basket
to pick out 5 crabs.
We picked the biggest one.
What do you mean, five?
Give it a good tap here.
A direct hit here
with the back of your knife
will break up the shell.
Then it's both flavorful and easy to eat.
Knife like this.
With the back of the cleaver,
we’ll smash the shell slightly on each leg.
Or, you can smash it with the side of your knife.
Or you could use the side of your cleaver like this.
This works too.
Set those aside.
This is the crab claw
See the joint?
It's soft, you can cut right through it.
For the claws, we’ll cut through the joints.
Look.
Look, here.
Cut here where it's soft.
Smash it a bit with the back of your knife.
Again, we’ll smash these with our cleaver.
Shannon from Patreon asked,
"How do you get the most meat out of your crab?"
Patiently pick at it.
You have to get your hands into the crab,
you can't be all dainty about eating it.
You have to use the crab cracker.
You can take out the meat after you crack the shell.
That's easier.
Sometimes I use a fork to pick the meat out.
Now, we have the shell.
Now, how do we handle this?
This is the stomach.
Press down.
We’ll remove the crab’s stomach here.
Pull it apart.
Take the whole thing out.
This is bitter.
Pour all the liquid out.
Restaurant usually split it here, using the heel of the knife.
Now we’ll chop off some of the bottom shell.
Get the crab innards.
Do you eat that?
Yes, it's delicious!
Look, it's all in here.
How can you tell what to keep and what to discard?
Discard these.
Discard the stomach.
Discard the gills.
Once it's all chopped up,
we'll coat it in some flour.
When we start to fry it, it'll be so fragrant.
Bring the claw over.
We don't need to coat these legs.
Now we'll sprinkle cornstarch on it.
For the body and claw pieces,
we’ll coat them with about 3 tbsp of cornstarch.
The legs don't need a coating
because they have a full shell on.
The starch will help seal in the juices on these pieces.
Make sure all the sides are lightly coated
but no need to be too thorough here.
We'll add a little bit of starch to the shell to soak up juices
to keep it from drying out.
For over a thousand years,
Chinese people sought after crab as a delicacy.
From high society poets to scholars,
many have written of their love for crab.
We love this quote from a Song Dynasty (960 – 1279) novel:
“A crab claw in one hand,
a wine glass in the other
floating in a pool of wine
is enough for a lifetime.”
Our recipe today,
goeng cung caau haai in Cantonese,
is a humble sequel to our crab love letters.
Just like in Cantonese seafood dishes
like our lobster yee min,
ginger and scallions are popular ingredients,
used to complement and enhance their natural flavors.
Now, our ingredients and crab are prepared.
Let's start cooking the crab.
Turn the heat to the highest setting.
Now, once the wok is hot,
add 4 tbsp of oil.
We’ll add 4 tbsp of oil to the hot wok,
making sure to spread it around with a spatula.
Add the crab.
When the oil is rippling hot,
we’ll add in our coated crab pieces a couple at a time.
You can't just dump them all in?
You can't just pour them in.
There isn't enough oil for that.
This isn't a restaurant kitchen.
Okay.
Why are you lifting the wok?
I'm tilting the wok so the oil can reach the crab pieces
because we're not using a large amount of oil.
Now, lower the heat.
After about a minute,
we’ll lower the heat and flip our pieces.
Watch, we're flipping them.
See the golden brown color?
Then you know it's fragrant.
Turn it up.
Can you deep-fry this?
Yes, deep-fried crab is in a lot of dishes.
For example, for fried crab with crispy garlic sauce, you deep-fry it first,
then you add the garlic.
All right.
After a minute of cooking this side,
we can take out the crab.
Turn the heat off.
So is that cooked through?
Yes, it's fully cooked.
Pour the oil out.
We’ll set aside the crab
and pour out the leftover oil.
Okay.
Turn the heat back up to high.
Add some oil.
Use the same oil again.
We’ll add back in about a tbsp of the oil.
Then the garlic and ginger.
Garlic.
And the ginger.
Fry up the garlic and ginger over high heat.
The white parts of the green onions.
We’ll cook those until fragrant or about 20 seconds.
Then follow with the crab legs.
Add the legs and fry them too.
We didn't fry them yet.
Get them aromatic.
We’ll stir-fry them with the aromatics
for about 30-40 seconds.
Did you ever catch crabs in China?
I never caught crabs this big.
Smaller crabs, yes.
Can you cook small crabs this way?
Yes! It's just smaller.
Great, now add the fried crab pieces from earlier.
Then we’ll add the rest of our pre-cooked crab pieces.
That smells amazing!
Now, add some wine.
Add cooking wine.
Then add a tbsp of cooking wine.
Now, that smells amazing!
Add 1 cup of water.
Mix this sauce in.
Now, we’ll add in a cup of water
and the sauce we mixed earlier.
Add the crab shell.
Let that cook.
In the middle?
Yes, put it in the middle, let it cook.
Put the lid on.
After putting the shell on top,
we’ll cover the wok with a lid
and let it cook for about 3 minutes.
I want to eat it.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
While it simmers, we’ll mix up some slurry.
Mix up some cornstarch slurry.
We’ll mix together 1 tsp of cornstarch and 1 tbsp of water.
When we add the slurry,
it'll keep crab meat juicy
and make it tasty.
It's cooked.
Whoa!
Oh my god!
After 3 minutes of cooking with the lid on, we’ll uncover.
First, we’ll set aside the shell.
Let's take this shell out first.
Look at that!
We’ll stir around our ingredients,
then have a taste test.
Let's have a taste.
Fantastic!
Then we’ll add in our slurry while gently stirring.
Is it on low heat?
Yes, on low heat now
as we add the slurry.
Add the rest of the green onions.
They can go in now.
We’ll add the green onions.
Oh my god!
Okay, heat off.
Add some sesame oil.
We’ll add a tsp of sesame oil.
"Can you do this recipe with lobster?"
Yes, just like our Lobster Yee Mein recipe!
You can make yee mein with this too.
Let's add a bit of finishing oil on top.
Now it's really good.
We’ll add in a tsp of oil and mix it in
to give the sauce a shiny appearance.
Add more sauce to make it look even nicer.
My dad adds another 2 tbsp of water
to get his preferred consistency and amount of sauce.
Great, all set!
Heat off.
When serving, my dad adds a bit of sauce
to coat the inside of the shell.
Then with the pieces arranged on the plate
roughly where they originally were on the body,
we’ll put the shell back on top
so it resembles a crab.
The crab is lovely.
Today's crab is very plump.
Ginger & Scallion Crab is complete!
I hope you all enjoy it!
Hong Doy, come downstairs and eat crab!
Cheers!
I want Devin!
You want Devin?
You want Devin's hat, or you want Devin?
Basketball!
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