Fresh Mud Crab Salad

This is a light, summery dish that's refreshing to eat on a hot day. I just love the sweet, delicate flavour of fresh crabmeat. The addition of pickled bamboo gives the salad depth of flavour, the vinegar balances out the sweetness of the bamboo and the coriander gives a lovely freshness to the salad. If you don't want the hassle of buying a live crab, cooking it and picking out the meat, then by all means buy ready-picked crabmeat - it's more expensive, but it'll save you a lot of preparation time.

Ingredients

• 1 x 750g mud crab or blue crab
• 2 teaspoons finely diced ginger
• 1/4 cup finely sliced red shallots
• 1/4 cup finely sliced spring onions (scallions), green part only
• 2 tablespoons roughly chopped coriander leaves
• 2 tablespoons finely sliced fresh black cloud ear fungus
• 45g pickled bamboo, cut into julienne
• 1/2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• Pinch cracked white pepper

Methods

1. Place crab in freezer for 1 hour, where it will 'go to sleep', then lower into a large stockpot of boiling salted water and cook for 5 minutes. Using tongs, carefully remove the crab from the pot, drain and allow to cool at room temperature.
2. Twist claws and legs from crab and pull off the top shell. Crack the large claws with the back of a heavy knife or cleaver and extract the meat. Cut along the small legs with scissors, then break them in half and extract the meat.
3. Discard the bony section at the head, rinse body cavity and under the shell where the legs were attached.
4. Cut body of crab into quarters. Using a skewer, extract ('pick') meat from each piece of body, removing any cartilage. When all the meat has been picked, discard all shell and any stray fragments of cartilage. You should have about 200 g (6 1/2 oz) of cooked, picked crabmeat.
5. Place crabmeat in a bowl and gently combine with the remaining ingredients except olive oil and pepper.
6. Serve salad in bowls, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with pepper.

Kredit: http://www.asianfoodchannel.com