Estuary Feast From The East
by Lynn Bain

THIS month’s Cooking Corner is an estuary feast of crabs and oysters with Asian flavours. Asian cuisine uses ingredients that enhance the flavours of different foods, and the blend of flavours is especially noticeable when cooking with seafood.

OYSTERS WITH ASIAN FLAVOURS

This recipe is a mixture of all that is delicious from several of our Asian neighbours.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons mirrin
• 1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce
• juice from 1 lime
• 2 shallots, very finely sliced
• 2 dozen oysters, unopened
• Preparation

• Mix all of the ingredients (except the oysters) together in a glass bowl.

• Shuck the oysters close to the bowl so that you can collect both the oysters and their beautiful juices in the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Keep the oyster shells because they’ll be used to hold the oysters while they are steaming. Take care while you do this to avoid getting any bits of shell or grit in the bowl.

• Allow the oysters to marinade for about 10 minutes.

• A bamboo steamer which can be used over a wok is excellent, but you can also use a steamer over a saucepan. Fill the wok or bottom pan of the steamer with about 4cm of water.

• Place the empty oyster shells in the steamer. Spoon one oyster along with a generous amount of the marinade into each shell. Cover the steamer and cook the oysters for a minute only.

• Carefully remove the filled oyster shells from the steamer. They’ll be hot and you want to keep the juice in the oyster shells.

Serve on a platter so that everyone can pick the oysters up in their fingers and eat out of the shell.

STIR-FRIED CRABS WITH BLACK BEANS

You can use either mud crabs or sand crabs in this recipe. I usually use either one muddy or three sandies. If you’re using live crabs, pop them into the freezer for about half an hour before cleaning and cutting into quarters.

You can buy black beans from most supermarkets or at Asian grocers.

Ingredients

• 3 sand crabs (prepared as detailed above)
• 1 tablespoon black beans, soaked in water
• 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon Viva olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine

Preparation

• Rinse the beans and crush them with the flat side of a knife blade. Place the beans in a bowl with the ginger, garlic, shallots and chilli.

• Heat a wok or heavy-based pan over a high heat. Add the olive oil to the wok (or pan) and swirl the oil around to coat the sides.

• Pop the bean mixture into the wok and stir fry for half a minute before adding the crab pieces. Continue to stir fry for a couple of minutes and then add the wine.

• Cover the wok and cook the crabs (about five minutes for sandies and 10 minutes for muddies). Stir occasionally.

Absolutely fantastic!