Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Crab Cutlets

It was the first time I was buying crabs.. and was sure excited about how dishes will turn out.. At the fish monger place, I had placed order for 500 gms crab, for which he gave me quite a stare and he suggested take atleast 2 crabs ( blue sea crabs), which itself will be about 760 gms.. Later I realized that people buy at about 3- 4 Kgs at a time..but I dint want to buy too much and later have a big disaster at hand.

Either way, I had bought it cleaned and then extracted the crab meat which is quite a clumsy process. The meat is quite watery and pudgy. I was not quite sure of what I wanted to prepare.. some options where the minced varient like scrambled egg, or a curry with coconut milk.. but it dint seem interesting enought. Finally decided that it should be cutlets as we were expecting couple of friends for dinner and this would be a different starter..

Here is the recipe..

1. Crab meat : about 250 Gms ( after extraction from shell )
2. Ginger Garlic Paste : 1.5 tea spoon
  Green Chilli - 3 no:s
  Onion : 2 mid sized cut into small pieces
  Ground Black Pepper Powder : 2 teaspoon
  Salt to taste
  oil for shallow frying

3. Bread crumbs : 2 slice breads crumbled

For the coating

Egg white : 1 egg white
Bread crumbs ; 1 slice bread crubmled

Heat oil in a kadai, cook ingredients 2 & 1 without adding any water. Cook for about 10-15 mins.Mince this cooked crab masala mixture. Add the bread crumbs ( ingredient 3) to the minced crab and mix well. The purpose of bread crumbs it to hold the crab mixture together. Make small cutlets with this. Brush the cutlets in egg white and roll it in the breadcrumbs so that it gets a good coating. Shallow fry the cutlets. Serve hot..

It did turn out very well and I was quite happy with the result..the peppery taste and the surprise in crab meat is what went well I guess...