Delicious seafood Plague of crabs pleases gourmets

Press, 6 August 1983, Page 12

Delicious seafood Plague of crabs pleases gourmets

I Food & Fable

Ibv

David Burton

An explosion in paddle crab populations around our coastlines recently is a dire warning of the dangers of disrupting one of nature’s fragile food chains.

It is believed that overfishing of the paddle crabs’ natural predators, in-shore fish species such as snapper and rig, has allowed the crabs to breed freely. Although this link has yet to be proven, it is borne out strongly by reports of especially high concentrations of paddle crabs in areas where commercial fishing is one the increase — the west coast of Northland and Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, the Kapiti coast, and the north and east of the South Island.

The fish cleaning operations of returning fishing boats may also be contributing extra food and encouraging the crabs to propagate further.

To make matters worse, the crabs in turn appear to be eating into our fast vanishing stocks of toheroas, tuatuas, and pipis. The one compensation of this environmental mess is that the paddle crabs themselves make excellent eating. The flesh is delicate and rather similar in flavour to the crayfish, perhaps not as succulent, but sweeter and more tender. Commercial ventures to harvest the crabs are already underway. It is good that for once we can all pig out on a seafood delicacy in the knowledge that we are actually doing the environment a favour.

The paddle crab (Ovalipes catharus) is also known as the swimming, surf, or sand crab, and lives mainly within 200 metres of the shore.

It is particularly aggressive, emerging from the sand to nip the soles and toes of bathers, and the fingers of pipi diggers. When disturbed in shallow water, paddle crabs can instantly subside into the sand, as if by magic, leaving their beady little eyes and claws above the surface in anticipation of attack. The best time for catching paddle crabs is one or two hours before sunset, and at night. After stormy weather they are particularly plentiful in shallow water.

be caught in

nets, but they cause bad tangles, and the professionals are now turning to pots. Since the restaurant, supermarket, and export markets all prefer crabs more than 80mm across the shell, only the larger males tend to be taken, leaving the females to reproduce. Whole paddle crabs are available from fish shops from time to time.

Often they are sold ready cooked, but to ensure absolute freshness they are best bought while still alive. A humane way to kill and cook them is to slowly bring them to the boil from cold water, as the crabs will slowly lose consciousness. Allow 6 to 8 minutes from boiling point, or 10 to 15 minutes if plunging them straight into boiling water. The latter way is best for retaining flavour. Most of the meat will be found in the claws and the base of the legs. The Pacific Crab ComKof Napier, which has exporting whole crabs and crab legs for several years, recently imported a crabmeat extraction machine from the United States.

Their first packs of frozen crabmeat are just beginning to reach the local market. The export potential for this frozen crabmeat looks promising in view of the almost total failure of the traditional Alaskan crab fishery last year. Global crab supplies were significantly reduced, prices soared, and the scarcity is expected to. continue this year. Becoming very popular on the local market

frozen crab sticks imported from Japan. Strictly speaking these should be called “seafood sticks,”, for although they certainly have crabmeat in them, it is mixed with white fish fillet.

I should not like to speculate on what else they contain in the way of artificial flavouring, but they have been passed by the Department of Health and are certainly very sweet and tasty. Failing any of these sources of supply, you can always buy imported tins of crabmeat from the supermarket.

All of the 4400 species of crab found throughout the world are theoretically edible, although naturally many species are too small to bother with.

While there are plenty of recipes for crabs which involve adding garlic, onion, chilli peppers and the like, most of these, to my taste at least, tend to drown the extremely delicate flavour of the meat.

Some of the nicest ways to serve crab are also the simplest: sprinkled with a little lemon juice or French dressing perhaps, on a bed of lettuce; or placed over slices of kiwifruit, topped with a dollop of mayonnaise, perhaps with a light sprinkling of black caviar to garnish. A particularly good salad combination is tinned whole kernel corn, skinned and chopped tomatoes, cooked long-grain rice, mixed together with a little French dressing and served with the crabmeat arranged around the side of the dish.

A crab omelette or souffle is another good way to diffuse the flavour rather than drown it.

Crab souffle

2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 300 ml milk 3 egg yolks 175 g (1 cup) crab meat, shredded 2 tablespoons sherry Few drops tabasco sauce Salt 4 egg whites Method: Preheat oven to 190 C (375 F Melt butter in a saucepan, blend in flour and cook for a minute or two. Pour in the milk (if you are using tinned crab substitute the juice for some of the milk) and bring to the boil to chicken, stirring continuously. Take off the heat and stir in the egg

yolks. Stir in the crabmeat, sherry, and tabasco sauce, and season to taste with a little salt. Allow to . cool a little while you beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Tip the sauce into the beaten egg whites as you fold in with a vertical circular motion using a rubber scraper. Neither the egg whites not the sauce should be too stiff, or it will be difficult to blend them together.

Do not over-do this folding either, as it pops the precious air Quickly transfer to a buttered, straight-sized dish (preferably a special souffle dish, but a cake tin works too) and place in the centre of the oven. Bake for 35 minutes undisturbed. Rush it to the table before it begins to deflate. Serves four.