Summer 2009
Just Jamie
SPICY SOFT-SHELL CRAB
Serves eight as a starter
As crabs grow, they get too big for their shells. The old shells are moulted to allow the skin beneath to firm up into a new, hard shell. Crabs caught in the week or so that this new shell takes to harden are known as soft shell and can be eaten whole. Ask your fishmonger to order you some, check out south-east Asian supermarkets or buy them frozen from online specialists The Fish Society at http://www.thefishsociety.co.uk/.
For the crabs:
• 1 litre vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• 400g Italian ‘00’ flour
• 30g hot smoked paprika
• 30g fennel seeds, toasted, ground
• 500g plain yoghurt
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 8 soft-shell crabs (see note), cleaned
• Sweet paprika and parsley, to serve
• beef tomato, deseeded and diced
• carrot, finely diced
• stalk of celery, finely diced
• 3 green olives, flesh finely diced
• 2 cornichons, finely diced each of red onion, fennel, courgette, yellow pepper and red pepper, all finely diced
• 3 anchovy fillets, finely diced
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped
A small handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 15ml olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 250ml mayonnaise
• 50ml tomato ketchup
In a deep saucepan, heat vegetable oil to 180C, or when a cube of potato rises to the top and turns golden brown. Combine flour, hot paprika and fennel seeds on one plate, and the yoghurt, lemon juice and some salt on another. Coat the crabs in the yoghurt, then in flour. Repeat for each crab. Carefully, fry the crabs for eight minutes, turning halfway. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper, and sprinkle with salt and sweet paprika. Serve with parsley and the spicy mayo (to make spicy mayo, simply combine all ingredients and season to taste).