Feeling crabby?

For some time now, I have wanted to tackle a crab. It's one of those foods--along with lobster, raw artichokes and snails--which intimidate me, as I have no frame of reference for how to deal with them. However, I like crab, it's tasty and sustainable, and cheaper than lobster, so when I was last in the supermarket I slid one into my basket. I did have a recipe in mind: September's Olive Magazine not only had a recipe for garlic, black pepper, and butter crab and paratha, but also a guide to how to deal with my six-legged friend.

So, I carefully read the directions and gathered my equipment, which involved a raid on Sam's DIY kit for a hammer. Opening the crab and getting his brown meat out was straightforward enough. But I was slightly worried that, as the hammer was on the large side, the crab's claws would shatter and I would spend the next seven hours trying to separate meat from shell fragments. Not so: while they required quite a whack before they gave out, they then cracked in such a way that getting the meat out was really rather easy, although--and perhaps this is because I have particularly delicate lady hands--I generally found it easier to get the meat out with my fingers than a skewer.  


Olive Magazine omitted to say that there was any point in picking the legs out; fortunately, I also had the packaging from Morrisons, which told me that 'there be meat in them legs', or something like that. Granted there isn't pounds and pounds, but enough that it would be a shame to throw it away, even though it is fiddly to get at. Perhaps this is a symptom of the North--South divide: pampered Southerners will just buy supersized luxury crabs with so much bounty in the claws the legs aren't worth considering, whereas we Northern folk need to pick the legs out and can't bear the concept of waste!

Anyway, the crab meat is fried with lots of butter, garlic, and loads of black pepper, as the oh-so-snappy title of the dish suggests. Making the paratha is a cross between making soda bread and a usual kind of loaf: it needs some resting time, but is made with plain flour and not really kneaded. It is cooked by frying in butter. I could probably have done better here; I thought the dough was a little loose, added a slug of water, and the dough immediately became very heavy and it made heavy bread. As it was hot, cooked through, and covered in butter, though, it wasn't unpleasant to eat. I substituted coriander for the advised wild garlic shoots which were out of season and not stocked by my favourite Northern supermarket. This was a lovely meal, really tasty, and piquant from the pepper. Well done Olive!

On to jam. Again, this was a recipe from September's Olive Magazine. It was supposed to be raspberry flavoured, but I couldn't get any any; however, blackberries have just come into season, so I bought some of those instead, along with some jam sugar. Making jam is not hard; I just thought it would be. My two comments on it are these: I only got two jars full out of 400g of fruit, and seeing as it was blackberry jam, I wish I had gone scrumping to have more fruit; and blackberry jam is a beautiful colour, and has a lovely taste, so I wish there was more. I think I'll spend the bank holiday among the blackberry bushes of Kirkstall (for those of you who know Leeds and are now chortling at the idea of urban berry picking here, there ARE some blackberry bushes).

The starter: it is now in a clean bowl!

Finally, finally, sourdough bread by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This, as I mentioned last week, has been on the go for over a week now, as I had to grow a starter (essentially making yeast by using flour, water and a piece of rhubarb (!) to attract natural yeasts and get them to multiply). The starter smells appalling at first, but by the time it's settled down into something usable, it has a mellow fruity aroma, and if you look closely you can see the yeast breathing and releasing bubbles. In order for it to thrive, half of it has to be thrown away and replaced on a daily basis. The bread dough is made in two stages: there's an overnight phase with the starter, and then some water and flour is added to make a 'sponge'. This is mixed with the rest of the flour to make dough, which quite literally can take all day to rise and prove (this is a time-consuming thing to make, even by bread standards!). It was rather heavy, but I'm guessing these things take time; it tasted right, and you couldn't actually build walls with it.

I feel I've achieved a lot in the last week: in tackling picking a crab and making jam I've successfully made two things for which I had no frame of reference whatsover (I'm sure that those of you who remember the weeks when I was cutting the tops of burnt things will excuse this ballyhooing).