Hecate Strait Dungeness Crab Cakes and Osuimono Soup

Description

A delicious two-part recipe from Chef Dai Fukasaku to help you savour all of the flavors from your local British Columbia caught Dungeness Crab. Three live Dungeness Crab will be needed to complete both recipes.

Preparation/Method

Crab cakes

1. Bring a large stock pot of water to boil. Add in your whole Dungeness Crab and make sure they’re all fully submerged in water. Put the lid back on to bring back to boil, remove the lid and cook for another 8 minutes. Immediately transfer the crab to ice water for 15 minutes or until they are completely cooled down, to prevent overcooking.
2. Start by removing the carapace (top shell), gills and guts. You will be left with the body meat and legs. Shuck the meat from these parts separately and make sure to save the crab leg shells from two of the crabs for your Osuimono. Use the crab meat from the bodies for the crab cakes and crab meat from the legs for Osuimono.
3. Put crab meat in a strainer (save the strained juice for the Osuimono). Check the shucked crab body meat to ensure there are no shells.
4. In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the crab cakes, saving the panko to add in at the end. For a gluten free alternative, just hold the panko and serve the mixture as a crab cocktail or use gluten-free panko.
5. Split the mixture into equal portions and form them into patties (8).
6. Coat a large skillet with oil and bring to medium heat. Add in the crab cakes and cook in batches until golden on top (2 minutes on each side).
7. To enjoy the beautiful flavour of your crab, no cocktail sauce, or garnish is needed. If you prefer, you can serve them with a lemon wedge.

Osuimono Soup Instructions

1. Take the water and crab shells (only the legs, not the body shells) and add them to a large pot set to medium heat. Let simmer for 90 minutes. Add water accordingly if the water gets low.
2. When finished, strain out the crab shells, keeping the stock. Return stock to the pot on medium heat. Add the crab juice you saved in step 3 of the crab cake recipe, mushrooms and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Add your salt and soya sauce to taste.
4. Split the crab meat and spinach into 4 equal portions and add to each bowl. Pour the broth into the bowls and garnish with chopped green onion.

Notes

Have left over crab meat? Wrap it in plastic wrap and it will keep fresh for 3-4 days in the fridge. Alternatively, you can tightly wrap or vacuum pack and freeze it for up to 6 months.