Happy Mother’s day! Hope all the mom’s out there had a wonderful Mother’s day and a great weekend as well. It was indeed a beautiful weekend for me, weather cooperated so well giving us enough sunshine and warmth. My husband and I did some outdoor activities like motorcycle riding and biking. Now, looking forward to a great week, hopefully it won’t rain much this week.

Yesterday, I went to the Asian store. That store never ceases to amaze me with the exotic fruits, veggies and sea food they carry. They literally got everything under the sun, some of the veggies/fruits that are common in my hometown are found in that store. I am so glad that it’s only a few minutes drive away from my house.

Making tom yum soup had been in my mind for so long, however it took a while for me to try it. This evening I was determined enough to try it in my kitchen and I already stacked up all the ingredients for making the soup. I have had this soup a few times at Thai restaurants, I couldn’t resist thinking about it often. This soup is just my kind of soup, spicy, aromatic and flavorful. The intense aroma from the lemon grass, kaffir leaves and galanga refreshes me and at the same time opens up all my senses.

I came across fresh crabs and so I bought a huge bag of those too, so decided to make tom yum soup with crab. It came out pretty delicious and yes it was packed with intense flavor and aroma.

Go ahead and use shrimp, chicken or just veggies instead of crab.

Crab Tom Yum Soup

Ingredients:

• Crab, cleaned small – 7 no’s (or use shrimp, large-12 no’s)
• Chicken stock, low sodium- 4 cups
• Lemon grass, cut small- 1 stalk
• Galanga, cut small- 2 pieces (or use ginger, 3 inch slice)
• Kaffir leaves- 3 no’s (or use lemon peel of 1 lemon)
• Garlic, cut small- 4 cloves
• Fish sauce- 3 tsp
• Lemon juice- juice of 1/2 lemon
• Soy sauce- 2 tbsp
• Chili paste or Sambal Oelek- 1 tsp
• Basil leaves- 2 no’s
• Mushrooms, oyster, enoki or straw- 1 box
• Tomatoes, chopped- 2
• Cilantro, chopped- 1/4 cup
• Spring onion, chopped- 1 stalk
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp (depending on your spice level)

Preparation:

• Clean the crab thoroughly  under running water, remove the crab butter that is found inside and the intestine.
• Read my old post on how to clean crab.
• Keep aside the middle part and twist the legs from the crabs.
• In a large pot or soup pot, pour the chicken stock, add lemon grass, galanga, kaffir leaves or lemon peel, garlic to it.
• Let the stock come to a rolling boil.
• Add the cleaned crab into it.
• Add mushroom, tomatoes, fish sauce, chili paste, lemon juice, basil leaves and soy sauce.
• Cover the pot and lower the heat, let the crab cook in the stock for about 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes of simmering, open the lid and have a taste of the soup.
• Adjust the spice and salt level according to your needs. If needed add more of chili paste and fish sauce.
• Add cilantro, green onions and ground pepper to the soup.
• Cook the soup for 10 more minutes.
• Ladle the soup on a bowl along with the crab and enjoy when it is hot.

Tips:

• Please make sure to adjust the spice level according to your needs, if it’s too spicy for you add little brown sugar to adjust.
• Use low sodium chicken stock.
• You could add shrimp, chicken or just veggies instead of crab.
• If you don’t have galanga use ginger instead.
• If you don’t have kaffir leaves, use lemon peel instead.

Live Blue crabs freaked me out but I turned them into a delicious dinner and I ate them in a messy style…

Yesterday, I met with a few live blue crabs in a fish market. I am a die hard crab fan and while eating them, I never seem to get tired of cracking the crabs and will never let go even the tiniest hidden meat from it. But, I wouldn’t dare to catch a live crab from the box and carry it in a bag with me to my kitchen. Thanks to my hubby who fulfilled my crab craving by getting fresh live crabs for me. For the first time three live blue crabs visited my kitchen. Honestly, I didn’t touch the crab until I made sure it was no longer alive. I made my hubby carry the bag and he kept it on the kitchen counter top. I could even hear the crabs crawling inside the paper bag, this really freaked me out. Seeing this, my hubby got excited and had some fun scaring me off. He came behind me carrying the bag of live crabs, I screamed and literally ran all over my house, this was more like an episode of “Tom and Jerry”

Before the crabs attacked me, I wanted to turn them into my sumptuous dinner. I made my hubby throw them into the boiling water and only after I made sure it was completely dead I even went near to it. I cleaned them thoroughly and transformed them into a spicy crab roast.

I loved crab ever since I was a kid and whenever crab was in season my mom used to make this spicy crab roast for me. I ate and ate, cracking the crabs making all the weird noise and making a huge mess. Even now this crab eating style of mine hasn’t changed, I still make a huge mess while eating crab. I think while eating crab you really have to eat it in a messy style, that’s when you’ve enjoyed it completely.

How to deal with live crabs:

• When you buy live crabs, put them in a paper bag and tie the bag properly.
• After coming home, throw them into a huge pot of boiling water and close it with its lid.
• The crabs will die after few minutes.
• After making sure the crabs are dead, drain the water and clean the crab under running water.

How to clean the crab:

• First, clean the outside of the crab under running water, using a brush or paper towel wipe off any dirt from the shell.

• Remove the legs from the crab by just breaking it off and rinse under running water.
• Hold the crab and run the sharp edge of a knife between the two eyes of the crab and pull the shell in the upward direction.

• The shell will open up into halves. Clean and save the outer shell for decoration.

• Remove the gills and other mucous stuffs inside the shell and rinse under running water.
• keep aside.

Making Spicy Crab Roast

Ingredients:

• Crabs, cleaned, legs separated- 3
• Cardamom, whole-2
• Cloves, whole- 2
• Cinnamon- 2 inch stick
• Star anise- 1
• Bay leaf, dry- 1
• Ginger, chopped- 2tsp
• Garlic, chopped- 1tsp
• Green chillies, cut half- 2
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Onion, cut lengthwise- 2
• Tomatoes, chopped- 2
• Chilly powder- 1tsp
• Fennel powder- 2tsp
• Coriander powder- 1tsp
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Water- 1/4 cup
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 2tbsp

For seasoning:

• Coconut oil- 3tsp
• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Red pearl onions, cut lengthwise- 4 nos
• Dry whole red chillies- 3
• Curry leaves- 4 no’s

Preparation:

• Heat a wide non-stick pan over medium heat, add oil, add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, star anise and saute.

• When the spices turn aromatic, add ginger and saute for a minute.
• Add garlic and green chillies and saute till the raw smell fades away.

• Add the onions, curry leaves, salt and saute until it turns golden brown.

• Add tomatoes to the browned onions and cook till tomatoes get mashed.

• Add chilly powder, fennel powder, coriander powder, pepper powder and saute well.
• Add the crab and combine everything well.

• Season the crab with salt, add water and cover the pan with its lid
• When the crab has cooked well, open the lid and saute till all the water in it has evaporated.
• Saute the crab until the onion starts to caramelize.
• Garnish with cilantro and remove from the flame and keep covered.

Making the seasoning:

• Heat coconut oil in a small pan and add mustard seeds, let it splutter.
• Add small onions, curry leaves and dry red chilly , saute till the onions turn golden brown.

• Pour this into the crab roast and immediately cover the pan with its lid so that all the flavor will get into the crab.

• Keep covered for 5 minutes.
• Serve the crab with rice or any flat breads.

Tips:

• You could adjust the spice level according to your needs.
• For better taste, saute the crab and onions until the onions turn caramelized.

Pomegranate juice infused with aromatic spices, poured over Crab cakes….

Without any further pondering, I would say, pomegranate is the glamorous and the gem among the fruits. The vibrant glossy red colored seeds can be easily mistaken for the gemstone ruby. I adore this fruit like anything and when I have this fruit I make sure to munch it with style, after all I am chewing the ultimate beauty. My acquaintance with this fruit started when I was a kid and the pomegranate tree at my grandparents had made it even more stronger. Whenever I visited my grandparents, I made sure to examine the tree for any ripe fruit. The joy of plucking the fruit from the tree and devouring it right away standing under the shadow of the tree, cannot be put in words, it was mind-boggling and the best way of having this fruit. Besides eating the fruit as such and making milkshakes with it, I had never looked at this fruit as an ingredient for making savory dishes. I must say I was so much mesmerized by the beauty of this fruit and this might have stopped me from trying anything else with this and just eating the fruit.

Luckily, I came across the POM wonderful pomegranate 2009 contest in food buzz, to participate in the contest, I have to submit an original recipe with POM wonderful 100% pomegranate juice. As soon as I read about this contest, I felt the adrenaline rush to participate in this contest, as I love POM wonderful and all their products, also this is the chance to be creative and make something out of pomegranate juice. As I have never cooked anything with pomegranate juice before, first thing I had to do was a little research about how it could be used in cooking. I was overwhelmed to see the numerous pomegranate recipes posted online, and this put me in embarrassment for not cooking with it before. Since I have to post an original recipe, I obviously had to be creative and had to think out of the box. After few days of experimentation in my kitchen I came up with a recipe with the POM pomegranate juice. My goal was to keep it simple yet fancy.

I easily figured out that the sweet and the tangy flavor of the pomegranate juice made it a flexible ingredient for cooking savory dishes. I tried to infuse aromatic spices into the pomegranate juice and added a hint of fish sauce and Tabasco sauce to make the flavor stronger and deeper. Thickened the infused aromatic juice with cornstarch and made it into a sauce constituency. This sauce was served over crab cakes. I had a real quick recipe for making crab cakes. Poured the sauce over the crab cakes. The aromatic, spicy pomegranate sauce enhanced the overall taste of the crab cakes immensely.

Here is the step by step instructions of making the Pomegranate sauce and the Crab Cakes.

Preparation time:

Sauce: 5 minutes

Crab cakes: less than 15 minutes

Yields, Crab cakes- 6

Ingredients:

For making the Sauce:

• POM wonderful, 100% pomegranate juice- 1 cup
• Freshly grated ginger-1/2 tsp
• Star Anise seed -2
• Lemon zest-1tsp
• Cornstarch- 1/2 tsp dissolved in little cold water
• Fish sauce- 1 tsp
• Tabasco hot sauce- 3-4 drops

Preparation:

• In a sauce pan, add the pomegranate juice along with ginger, star anise seed, lemon zest.

• Boil and simmer it for 2 minutes to infuse the flavor.

• Strain it to discard the spices.
• Return the aromatic juice back into the sauce pan, add fish sauce and Tabasco and give it a stir.
• Finally add the cornstarch dissolved in little cold water and keep stirring until the sauce thickens.
• Remove from the heat and pour the sauce into a serving bowl and keep aside.

For making Crab cakes:

Ingredients:

• Crab meat shredded, use fresh or canned-12 oz

• Lemon zest- 1 tsp
• Scallions chopped-1tbsp

• Plain Bread crumbs- 1/2 cup

• Ground black pepper-1/2 tsp
• Butter- 1tbsp
• Olive oil or Vegetable oil- 2 tbsp

Preparation:

• In a medium bowl, combine the crab meat, lemon zest, scallions, bread crumbs and ground pepper until evenly incorporated with spoon and keep aside. Don’t over mix the meat.

• Make medium sized balls out of the mixture and flatten the balls in between the palm of your hands.

• In a wide skillet, add butter and oil, let the oil gets hot. keep the flame in medium.
• Place the crab cakes onto the butter/oil.
• Brown both the sides for few minutes, until it is cooked through.

• Transfer it on the serving plate and pour the Pomegranate sauce over the crab cake.

• Enjoy the Crab cakes with the sauce.