Golden Oldies
by Lynn Bain

TWO of the most frequent recipe requests I get are for a couple of golden oldies: chilli crab and garlic prawns. This month I’ll take you though these recipes, adding a few taste twists that have evolved over the years which compliment (but don’t disguise) the beautiful bursts of flavour of the original recipes.

GARLIC PRAWNS

The cooking time for prawns is very quick, so you’ll need to have all your ingredients ready before you start.

Ingredients

• 1kg green prawns, peeled with tail segment left on
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 100g butter, softened
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• Freshly ground salt and pepper

Preparation

• Devein the green prawns. Heat a heavy based frypan over a low heat.

• Combine the olive oil, butter, crushed garlic, lemon juice, parsley, and salt and pepper together in a bowl. Add the oil mixture to the frypan, taking care that the temperature of the pan won't cause the butter to burn. Allow this mixture to cook slowly for a couple of minutes so that the flavours blend with each other.

• Add the green prawns to the pan, stir and cook until the prawns are just pink. This should only take a couple of minutes. Serve straight away.

Wonderful served with fresh crusty bread to soak up the delicious juices.

CHILLI CRAB

This recipe is suitable for either sand or mud crabs. Allow yourself plenty of preparation time. The actual cooking time is short, but we’ll be using fresh crabs and need to put them in the freezer for about 40 minutes to anaesthetise them.

Ingredients

• 2 fresh mud or 6 sand crabs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1-2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 2 red chillies, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup Thai sweet chilli sauce
• 1x 425g tin Ardmona finely chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon mirin (optional)

Preparation

• Take the crabs from the freezer and clean them. Remove the claws and, using a heavy knife, cut the bodies into quarters. Crack the claws with the back of the knife or cleaver.

• Heat a wok until very hot. Add the olive oil, making sure that the oil coats the sides of the wok. Stir fry the crab (a few pieces at a time) until the shell of the crab is bright red. Remove the crab from the wok and place to one side.

• Add the onion to the wok and stir fry for a minute before adding the garlic, ginger and chilli. Continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the chilli sauce, chopped tomatoes, sugar, water and mirin. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and add the crab pieces. Toss the crab in the chilli sauce mixture to coat and continue to cook for either five minutes (sandies) or 10 minutes (muddies). Continue to toss the crab in the chilli sauce from time to time as it cooks.

Serve with heaps of bread to soak up the sauce.