[Music]
hello this is chef john from food wishes
calm with creole crab noodles that's
right we're gonna be doing an Asian
style rice noodle dish jazzed up with
some of my favorite ingredients from New
Orleans and what I think it's gonna
surprise you the most about this dish
it's not the amazing taste or the
addictive texture or beautiful
appearance what I think you're gonna
find most shocking about this is just
how fast and easy this is to put
together
alright this shouldn't take more than 15
minutes start to finish as long as you
prep a few things ahead of time so let's
go ahead and get started with those few
things and we'll begin by dicing up some
celery onion and pepper or as they call
in Louisiana the Holy Trinity and this
is basically the aromatic vegetable base
that starts off so many of the great
recipes there so I have some finely
diced celery some red and green jalapeno
as well as some green onions although
any other onion will work and then
besides prepping that a little bit of
veggie we're also gonna have to find
some crab and if that doesn't work out
you could always buy some and while
freshly cooked and pick crab would be
the best this pasteurized blue crab is
sold in most big grocery stores fish
departments and works out very nicely
here and then the only other thing we
could probably do before we start
cooking is go ahead and mix up our sauce
which is going to start with three or
four cloves or finely crushed or minced
garlic and then to that we'll go ahead
and add a little bit of ketchup as well
as some rice vinegar which is sold in
two forms there's the regular and then
the one you see me pouring in here which
goes by the name of seasoned and all
that is is regular rice vinegar to which
they add some sugar and salt so we'll
pour in some of that as well as a little
splash of soy sauce and then we will add
one of my favorite all-time secret
ingredients some Asian fish sauce which
is technically optional but I consider
mandatory and then I'm also going to
squeeze in a very generous amount of hot
sauce or at least what I think is a
generous amount
go ahead and finish this off with a
spoon and paprika as well as a little
bit of the lovely and talented cayenne
pepper and last but not least a little
bit of ground cumin and that's it well
go ahead and take a whisk and give this
a mix and then once our very simple
sauce is set we can move on to the last
major component the noodles and as I may
have mentioned we're gonna use rice
noodles here which looked like this and
while they feel and appear to be very
much like regular pasta these get
prepared in a slightly different way
since instead of adding these to boiling
water what we do is put them in a bowl
like this and then cover them with
boiling water which I'm just doing from
a tea pot and then what we'll do besides
given these a toss with our tongs is set
our timer and let these soak for 10
minutes exactly which plane will drain
them and add them to the veggies we're
about to cook okay so make sure you give
those a nice stir and don't forget to
set your timer and also have a strainer
or colander nearby and then what we'll
do while those are soaking is cook our
veggies and for that we'll use the
skillet set over medium-high heat into
which we preheated a couple tablespoons
of vegetable oil and we will go ahead
and add our Holy Trinity and what we'll
do is cook this stirring for about three
or four minutes or so or until the
vegetables just start to soften up a
little okay we don't want them crunchy
and we don't want a mushy so somewhere
in between that and as we do this we
want to keep in mind that we have that
timer set for our noodles and when that
rings we need to drain those and add it
to this pan immediately so that adds a
little bit of excitement to this
procedure all right you know those
action movies where the hero has like 10
minutes to defuse the bomb otherwise the
whole world explodes this is as close as
most of us will ever get to that feeling
all right so don't stress out too much
but we do need to complete this step
before the timer rings so that will be
up to you to monitor
I mean you are after all the Delta dawn
of not doing this wrong but having said
that 10 minutes should be plenty of time
and if your veggies finish early like
mine did we'll just go ahead and turn
off the heat and with that heat off I'll
go over and check my noodles where the
timer is just about to ring and as you
could probably see they've swelled up
and softened up nicely
like I said as soon as that timer rings
we will quickly but safely go ahead and
drain those and we'll go ahead and add
those to our pan and at this point we
can also quickly toss in our crab and
sauce mixture in fact we had those so
quickly we don't even bother to focus
our camera and then it finished us off
what we'll do is turn our key back on
the medium-high and stir all this
together and as soon as our noodles have
been coated with all that goodness and
everything's been heated through we are
pretty much done so I cooked my stern
over medium-high heat for a couple
minutes
and if everything goes according to plan
you should end up with something that
looks close to this and by the way if
you were gonna add some fresh herb to
this now would be the time to do it okay
stuff like basil cilantro mint could be
very nice here but this time I'm going
to enjoy this sans herb so all I'm gonna
do is give it a taste for seasoning
which I'm happy to report was just right
so I went ahead and serve this up and of
course because I'm a highly trained
professional we're gonna use a pre warm
bowl and once that's dished out for a
final touch will top that with a little
bit of sliced green onion and that's it
what I'm calling Creole crab noodles is
done or would it be our done either way
let me grab a fork and go in for the
official taste and even though it
doesn't look like we have a ton of crab
in this we actually do have a generous
amount and even though you can't
necessarily see it the flavor is there
accentuated as I said by that Asian fish
sauce and along with our other seasoning
is that Holy Trinity of vegetables in
the background really did work
beautifully in this dish so for what was
basically an experiment I have to say
this came out really well and if you've
never experienced rice noodles before
they have this very unique sort of chewy
texture that I find makes them very very
addictive no matter how you flavor them
in fact the reason pad thai is the most
popular dish served at Thai restaurants
is because they use these noodles and
people just can't get enough of this
texture but anyway that's it Creole crab
noodles
whether you're gonna confuse your
friends by serving these to some Mardi
Gras related gathering or you're just
searching for something tasty and easy
for a weeknight I really do hope you
give this a try soon so head over to
food which is calm for all the
ingredient amounts and more info as
usual
and as always enjoy
[Music]
you