Garlic-Black Pepper Crab | Cua Rang Tỏi Tiêu

An easy, delicious workaround for a restaurant-y dish

I’d like to think that this tastes as good (if not better) than it looks. It’s something that I made for a weeknight dinner this week, thanks to a deal on whole crab at the supermarket. All you need is one crab to satisfy two people, with a little leftover for an indulgent snack.

We’re in crab season and I hope to encourage you to look at the crustacean from different angles. I love a simple crab salad with freshly made mayonnaise, crab cakes, or a crab Rangoon, but this dish is rock ‘em sock ‘em delicious. It’s a little messy to eat but it’s extra fun, and you — the cook, do not have to pick the crab meat yourself! This is an Asian restaurant-style dish but I do things slightly differently with spectacular results.

Simplified but not simplistic

The usual method for cua rang tỏi tiêu (“cu-aH rahng toy tee-U”) is this: get a live crab, kill it, cut it up and crack its raw parts, deep-fry to quickly cook the crab, then roast or wok-toss the crab with seasonings. Did that make you wince or did your eyes glazed over? Who wants to go to all that trouble? Plus — I have to tell you this: the deep frying-and-roasting/wokking approach can turn the crab dry, making me (the eater) extra crabby. Crab’s richness lies in preserving its fresh succulence and sweet briny flavor.

For those reasons and to streamline cooking, I prefer to use boiled crab then quickly cooking its parts with a spiced up blend of seasonings and an umami boosting sauce. There are few tricky dance moves involved to making an impressive dish. You’ll savor the crab and seasonings with less hassle. You’ll be eating faster too. If you’re like me and are looking for more easygoing ideas for celebrating crab season, add this recipe to your list!

No Dungeness? No problem. You can use rock crab or blue crabs. Just break them down like a big boy Dungy. And, if you watched my how to pick crab video, you realize by the aprons that the crabs we buy are males. Females need to be put back in the ocean to birth new crabs!

If you’ve never prepared this kind of dish before, below are key points to consider.

~ Andrea

Break down the crab with care

You can buy the legs and bodies or you start from a whole crab. Regardless of where you start with the crab, do your best to remove loose shell bits as you prep. Once the finished dish hits the table and people dig in, it can be hard to find those loose bits. There inevitably are some (I’m always prepared to apologize for them). But, you can minimize their lingering presence by cracking the legs gently with a nutcracker (a meat mallet can be thunderous), and using a sharp knife to make relatively clean cuts through the body section.

Remove the apron and those fang-like parts underneath!

Go bold with the seasoning paste

But you don’t have to be super gentle with making the seasoning paste. I crack peppercorns by putting them in a plastic bag and tapping with a meat tenderizer. A heavy bottom pan or something similar would work too. You want them small enough so that you don’t mistaken them for a crab shell bit.

Why so much pepper? That’s actually not much. I’ve made Singaporean black pepper crab with about 3 times as much black pepper. Pepper is not all about heat. It can be nutty and floral too. My house black pepper comes from Vietnam and is sourced from a single farm through Burlap and Barrel. I’ll talk a bit more about B&B’s suite of Viet spices in a future post but the Robusta pepper is lovely.

The pepper is added to a mixture of garlic, shallot and ginger accented by turmeric. These aromatics are gently fried at the front end of cooking to curb their raw edges, making this garlic-black pepper crab date night friendly. Seafood can be iffy to eat so ginger and turmeric not only add flavor and vibrant color but help digestion to boot. Flavors are built for multiple reasons and this is a win-win situation. This Burlap and Barrel Viet red turmeric is stunningly vivid in appearance and taste; it should be back in stock soon. Use what you have and add little more if your turmeric seems weak. (I made a double batch for recipe testing so this photo looks like a lot.)

What’s up with the seasoning sauce and butter?

This is where the umami blast comes in. You’ll use crab tomalley (or an egg) plus a little oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar, and to send things over the top — MSG. Omit the MSG if you like, but a tiny bit makes a delicious difference.

Salted butter amplifies the richness of the crab. Better yet, use a high-fat butter and even better than that, a cultured butter. I opted for Trader Joes’ cultured butter from France. The bottom line — choose butter that you’d spread on bread or mix into warm rice, noodles, or potatoes. Because I had to fry the paste for a spell, I didn’t use all butter (it may have burned) and opted to combine butter and oil. If you’re a ghee person, use it!

What to cook the crab in

A big wok works well but a wide heavy Dutch oven, with its greater surface area for quickly heating the crab, is a fine pan to use too. Actually, it’s quite nice because this this gets a bit messy toward the end as you stir the contents briskly. For recipe development purposes, I cooked this on my medium 9,500 BTU burner (it’s what most cooks have) but as I say in my books, adjust your cook times and heat level according to your burners.

Repurposing leftover crab

Crab can be filling. I held back some of my portion to share with my husband the next day via crab quesadillas — something I’ve seen on restaurant menus but never ordered because they are pricey and the crab’s freshness is seldom (if ever) mentioned.

To focus on the crab, keep the quesadilla simple: Put a tortilla in a skillet over medium heat, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of grated melty cheese (Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggi is my go-to), some crab, a little more cheese to seal the deal, a crack of black pepper because crab and pepper are a winning match, and a tortilla. Flip once things have stuck together. Flip again, if you like a crisp, toasty finish. Repeat to use up all the crab! From about 1/3 cup of crab, I made 2 quesadillas. Use flour tortillas, if you like.

Scroll on down for the recipe but briefly pause for these emerald hills in Central California. I snapped the shot at a rest stop, thinking of you all.

Garlic-Black Pepper Crab | Cua Rang Tỏi Tiêu

Garlic Black Pepper Crab

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Serve with cold beer and keep plenty of napkins handy. See Notes for using pre-cleaned crab.

Serves 2

• 1 large (1 3/4 pound) cooked Dungeness crab

Seasoning paste

• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns 

• 1 tablespoon chopped shallot

• 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic 

• Chubby 1/2-inch section ginger, peeled and thinly sliced 

• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

• 1 tablespoon water plus more as needed 

Seasoning sauce

• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

• Reserved crab tomalley, or 1 large egg

• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce

• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon fish sauce (use maximum if not using MSG)

• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon MSG (optional, but encouraged for sending the dish over the top)

• 1 tablespoon neutral oil

• 1 1/2 tablespoons salted butter

• 1 large handful cilantro sprigs, coarsely chopped

Break down the crab
Pull off the legs and claws, then remove the shell. If you like to eat the tomalley and fat, scrape it out from the shell, reserving for the seasoning sauce. Remove the crab apron and any other shell bits. 

Use a knife to quarter the crab body. Set aside on a plate. Use a nutcracker to crack the legs and claws at the joints. As you prep, discard any bits of shell that come flying off or feel loose.  Add the legs and claws to the body sections. 

Make the seasoning paste 
To crack the peppercorns, put them into a small zip-top plastic bag, seal it up, then tap and whack with a meat tenderizer or other heavy blunt object. Aim for a coarse, fragrant result. Transfer to a small bowl. 

Use a mortar and pestle to pound the shallot, garlic, ginger, and turmeric into a paste, adding the 1 tablespoon water gradually. Alternatively, use a small food processor, pulsing and scraping down the side as needed. Add the yellow seasoning paste to the cracked pepper.

Mix the seasoning sauce
In a measuring cup, combine the cornstarch, tomalley (or egg), oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar, MSG, and enough water to make ⅔ cup. Whisk to combine well. Set the sauce near the stove with the crab and seasoning paste.

Cook the crab
Set a large wok or wide Dutch oven over medium heat, then add the oil and butter. After the butter melts, scrape in the seasoning paste and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently for 2 to 3 minutes, until toasty and you see golden bits. Turn down the heat if you fear things burning. Cook longer, if needed to coax flavor.

Add the crab, increase the heat to high, and swiftly stir-fry the crab for 2 to 3 minutes to heat the crab through and evenly coat with the seasoning paste. The crab will take on a golden-orange hue. 

Slightly lower the heat to slow cooking, give the seasoning sauce a stir, then pour over the crab. Swiftly stir the crab to coat it in the sauce, which should cohere to look somewhat scrambly, resembling lots of crab tomalley and fat. After the mixture sets, turn off the heat and throw in the cilantro, stirring to mix it in and slightly wilt. Transfer to a serving platter. Present with an extra bowl for shells. Eat immediately.

Notes

Ingredients: Want to skip cleaning a whole crab? Use 1 1/4 pounds of cooked crab legs and body sections. Start the recipe from where you cut and crack the crab parts. 

Timing: The crab can be prepped a day ahead and refrigerated. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before cooking.