Father Christmas exists, and I have irrefutable proof of this.
Think back to when you still believed in St. Nic, and think about the mountain of presents you used to receive.
Now think about the number of presents you received the year after you stopped believing. Fewer presents right? And the longer you stopped believing, the fewer the presents became!
See, irrefutable proof!
None of this has stopped me rising at birdsfart each and every Christmas morning (The sun rising over the Indian ocean did make it a little bit easier this year, I must say).
It was during my second cup of coffee, and while opening my final present, that I somehow managed to volunteer myself to cook the seemingly endless supply of fresh crab we had. I was the obvious choice for this task, taking into account my seemingly endless experience in cooking any type of sea food. And by endless experience, I really mean I was desperately looking for a Justin Bonello to show me how its done.
Blue swimming crab, or just yummy eating crab?
After a quick Google search (thank goodness for roaming) I had an idea.
Boil each crab for 10 minutes, until the crab changes colour.
Easy enough, right?
I had to resort to the roasting pan, placed over two burners on the gas hob, to get the job done. We even tried covering the roasting pan with tin foil to speed up the water boiling.
Add a generous amount of salt to the water, around half a cup.
This next part is really important, so feel free to take notes: It is very important to ensure that the crab is correctly cleaned! I find the easiest way to do this, is to make sure it is done by someone else!
Once the water is at a rolling boil, add the crab, ensuring the each crab is fully submerged.
The colour change was almost immediate
Once the water has come back up to a boil, set your timer for 10 minutes. Our crab changed colour almost immediately, going from blue to red, so I quickly abandoned the idea of using colour as a guideline for knowing when the crab is cooked.
Two batches later and we were ready to roll.
10 minutes later and it was magic time
I delegated the responsibility for making the tartar sauce to the prettier members of the group, who did this by mixing together some mayonnaise, salt, pepper, finally chopped gherkins and some gherkin juice. By no means was this a traditional tartar sauce, but it was good none the less.
Oh yes, and the Mozambique style that we added to the crab, well you see, we had a minor oversight when deciding on crab, this being the fact that we hadn’t brought anything along to crack open the crab with. But in true Mozambican style, we made a plan (showing that it’s not only the Boers who can do this). Luckily we generally carry quite a well stocked tool box. Comes in handy for changing car tyres, minor repairs to the house, and even opening crab!
2 spanners and a hammer, could be the name of a sitcom on M-net
Honestly the first thing I thought when I saw the photo was “Those fokken’ prawns!”
“You hear that popping noise, that’s the babies! Like pop-corns”.
Oh my. I am starving after reading this. Love, love, love! I’ve never tried to cook crab, so I really appreciate your explanation. You made it sound like even I could do it!
Thanks, my thinking was that if anyone didn’t die from it, it turned out okay. This also seems like the easiest way to cook ‘em, I’ll try some more adventurous ways soon.
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