On the excellent TNE website you can find a piece I wrote on the decimation of the shellfish industry on Teesside, where the construction of a new freeport has allegedly led to widespread crustacean deaths. The causes are a point of contention, but there is one certainty: an area once known and prized for fine crabs, lobsters and scallops is now vastly depleted. Fishers who, for almost half a century, have made a living taking small boats out of Hartlepool say they are now unable to work. It’s a tragedy.
It is also a reminder that other parts of the UK are producing some of the best shellfish in the world, and these should be championed and protected. From coastlines in Scotland to East Anglia – Cromer, most notably – to Devon and Cornwall, there is an abundance of oysters, mussels, lobsters, langoustines, crabs, scallops, and more.
This week, crabs. Along shorelines across Scotland, the brown crab is an economically important fishery, long established. Landings continue in
large numbers. According to the Scottish government, the population of
brown crab is poorly understood, but the species is found in the shallows from Ullapool to Edinburgh, and out at sea at depths of up to 100ft in the chilly North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
The species is famous. It is the crab depicted in popular culture, with a large, brown-orange shell, and long claws tipped with black. It is these that are most commonly prepared and dressed, the white meat pearly and crisp and sectioned off with salad, lemon, a little spice, and delicious with mayonnaise and French bread. The brown meat might be whipped through butter, or mixed into chilli and garlic noodles as it is at the Shoreditch restaurant Manteca.
In Edinburgh is The Little Chartroom, Roberta Hall-McCarron’s revered restaurant, that celebrates the country’s best produce. The chef opened in a bigger site in 2021, the same year she won the fish course on the BBC’s Great British Menu. At The Little Chartroom, seafood dishes include raw scallops with basil, pine nuts and tomato ponzu; and cod with asparagus, brown shrimp and potato.
Visit and you might be lucky enough to find this dish on the menu: dressed crab with curry, cucumber, and smoked almonds. It is a fancy and complex plate of food because Hall-McCarron’s delicate and careful combinations of flavour are majestic, but with time and energy it can be replicated at home and makes for a wonderful dish to impress friends at a barbecue, say, before all the sausages. Ultimately, we could all be enjoying more crab in the UK. And this is one good way of doing so.
DRESSED CRAB, CURRY, CUCUMBER AND SMOKED ALMONDS
SERVES 4
300g picked white crab meat
80g smoked almonds, chopped small
½ cucumber, halved and sliced thin
2 finger limes, cut open and scooped out (alternatively one lime)
1 tsp Korean chilli powder
CUCUMBER DRESSING
2 Granny Smith apples
½ cucumber
40ml white balsamic vinegar
Pinch of fine salt
Cut the apple into small pieces, removing the core.
Cut the cucumber into small pieces.
Place in a blender and blend until smooth, add in the salt and vinegar.
Strain through a piece of muslin or cloth.
CURRY OIL
2 cups of sunflower oil
½ cup of thinly sliced Granny Smith apple
⅓ sliced white onion
½ stalk lemongrass, thinly sliced
2 tblsp madras curry powder
1 kaffir lime leaf
Heat 1 cup of oil in a medium saucepan over a low heat.
Add the apple, onion and lemongrass, sweating until translucent – approx 5 mins
Add the curry powder to the vegetables and cook out for approx 2-3 mins.
Add the remaining oil and the kaffir lime leaf, heat the oil to 70 degrees C
Remove from heat, cover and steep for 20 minutes, strain through a coffee filter.
CURRY MAYO
2 egg yolks
1 tsp Dijon mustard
300ml curry oil
2tsp lime juice
Seasoning – to taste
40ml yoghurt
Whisk together the egg yolk, mustard and lime juice. Slowly start adding the curry oil – whisking constantly to emulsify.
Finish by adding fine salt and fold the yoghurt through the mayo.
RICE CRACKERS
105g sushi rice
450ml water
5g salt
1lt sunflower oil
Boil the rice in the water until slightly overcooked, whisking occasionally to break down the grains.
Place in a blender and blend until smooth.
Divide the mix into two and spread flat on to a piece of parchment paper (or greaseproof) on a tray.
Place in an oven at 70 degrees C, for approx 5 hours until the rice mix has dried and you can snap it into smaller pieces. If it’s bending – it needs longer to dry out.
Pour 1lt of oil into a medium-sized pot and heat on the stove to 210 degrees C.
Once it has reached temperature, carefully using tongs place the dried rice crackers into the oil one at a time, they will double in size and puff up!
TO FINISH
Place the crab meat in a bowl and add 2 heaped tablespoons of curry mayo and mix well. Using the finest part on a grater, grate the lime zest into the crab, mix it in and have a quick taste to check the seasoning – it might need a little pinch of salt!
Divide the crab mix into 4 and spoon into a 14cm diameter bowl, spread evenly over the base of the bowl. Dress the cucumber slices with the cucumber and apple dressing and place flat over the crab.
Sprinkle the chopped almonds on top, next sprinkle a small amount of the
Korean chilli flakes, lastly spoon the finger limes evenly over everything or
squeeze a little lime juice if you were unable to get finger limes.
Serve the puffed rice crackers alongside.
