Get your claws into British crab
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Version 0 of 1. It may have been an extended summer, but it is well and truly over. The bucket and spade are long packed up, the sticks of rock have been chomped through and that whisper of a suntan has faded away. Luckily, there is still one seaside treat that’s good for another few months … British crab. The crustacean is at the peak of its season right now, and it seems we can’t get enough of it. Waitrose says its sales of British crab are up 13% year on year, with overall shellfish sales up 25%. There seem to be several reasons for crab’s increasing popularity. Waitrose is attributing the sales rise, in part, to the sunny summer. But it is also flavour of the month at several new(ish) restaurants, including Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen in Port Isaac, Cornwall, Bonnie Gull Seafood Café in London (try the Dorset crab roll with pickled cucumber) and Beast, also in London, a banqueting hall for latter-day Henry VIIIs who feast on steaks and Norwegian king crab. British crab has been scuttling towards the culinary limelight for a while now. Waitrose buyer Vanessa Stephens says: “In the past five to six years, celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay have all championed crab.” Chef Mitch Tonks, the owner of five seafood restaurants, says: “As more people discover crab, they love it, and more restaurants and crab shacks are springing up all over the place.” Crab certainly seems to capture the hearts of the nation’s top seafood chefs – Luke Robinson of Bonnie Gull says he “honestly prefers it to lobster”, while Mark Hix is such a fan, he now holds an annual festival in Dorset, Crab Feast, “to highlight the awareness of good things on our doorstep”. Why do chefs love crab so much? “It’s versatile,” says Hix. “It’s a simple light starter to eat in or out of the shell, and can be added to many dishes. One of my favourites is brick-oven chilli crab, and I always keep the shells for a good stock or soup.” Tonks raves about crab’s delicate flavour: “I don’t think you can beat fresh crab with good mayonnaise. It’s one of the finest things in the world to eat.” There are more good reasons to eat British crab. As well as being a relatively affordable delicacy (especially when compared with lobster), its increasing popularity is good news for fishing communities in several parts of the country (Waitrose now stocks crab from Norfolk, Cornwall and Orkney, for example). It is also pretty sustainable – brown crab from Scotland and the south-west is rated as a “fish to eat” by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). “Consumers should also be looking to buy crabs above their minimum landing size of 130mm,” advises Bernadette Clarke from the MCS. “Cornwall and Devon have higher landing sizes – 160mm for cock or male crabs.” From a flavour perspective, most chefs advocate unpasteurised crab. “The best results come from boiling your own,” says Robinson. Hix agrees: “Have the confidence to cook it yourself, as it can easily be overcooked.” Tonks believes that for the best crab, you need to be within brine-sniffing distance of the sea. “If you want fresh crab, you have to head for the coast. We buy our crab from Salcombe and Dartmouth boats and have it picked every day for the restaurant. I think the flavour of crab diminishes by the hour.” Once you’ve got hold of that prized crustacean, it’s time for the squeamish part. “Cook it yourself from live in plenty of heavily salted water – 15 minutes is fine for a kilo crab,” says Tonks. “Leave it to stand on its nose until cool, then pick it straight away.” But what if you can’t get to the sea? For landlocked cooks, Robinson says that “Ocado delivers a very good Dorset picked crab.” Waitrose doesn’t offer crab to cook at home, but its dressed Orkney crab is unpasteurised and cooked on site in Scotland. There are plenty of delicious things to make with your crab meat. According to Hix, “pasta, risotto, salad, sandwiches and many Asian dishes” all work well, including his aforementioned take on a Singaporean favourite, chilli crab. “It’s so versatile”, agrees Robinson, “we even pot roast it in seaweed in the shell.” However, Robinson and Tonks caution against drowning the delicate flavour of crab meat. Robinson says: “Asian-style cooking can overwhelm the crab, so always cook on the shell to avoid losing the delicious flavour.” Sometimes you can’t beat the simple treatment. “I like to have thick crab sandwiches with cucumber, mayo, white and brown meat, white pepper and malt vinegar,” says Tonks. “If I have all the family around, we just cover the table in newspaper, heap up the crabs in the middle and pick away.” |