It is about to be the New Year, today to work, the traffic and pedestrians on the road have been a lot less, the vegetable market and supermarket are popular, everyone is preparing for the New Year. In addition to the sauce meat, sauce duck, wind chicken, sausages prepared by ningbo people, most of the seafood, fresh wind eel, eel tube, striped fish, pomfret, cuttlefish, yellow fish, but the most precious of them, and the indispensable thing in the family is the salted crab. Around November and December, although the Zhoushan area catches a large number of pike crabs, there are not many supply to the vegetable market, and the price is very expensive, because they are all put away and pickled, ready to supply the Spring Festival market during the New Year.
Now the New Year, each family has indeed bought salted crabs, we Ningbo people no crab is not a banquet, the New Year, salted crab is one of the necessary cold dishes, more important than the whole chicken and duck, otherwise this family banquet has no sincerity.
The delicious salted crab is first of all visual, a good barracuda crab must bring a bright red paste, in addition to the crab cover, each piece of body part of the crab meat is best to bring red crab paste, when cut out of the plate, all the red paste should be placed outwards, so that guests can see at a glance how fat this crab is.
Secondly, salted crab is best not too salty, there is also a slight sweetness in the slightly salty, especially the plump crab paste part, especially lubricated, full of mouth umami, crab meat part is crystal white, bite up there is a little bit of ice slag, eat it is also slightly sweet, do not be too salty is the best product.
The third is that the pike crab must be fresh, it is best to just catch it from the sea, rinse it with water, or when the crab is alive, it is directly salted, and the crab is directly "choked" in the salt, and the name of the choking crab is derived from this.
Well, spent more than a hundred yuan to buy a choking crab, now how to cut is a key, to put out a high-grade plate, to be worthy of this price!
This crab with rubber band is 323 grams, that is, the net weight is about 6 two, almost all of which are this weight.
After cutting the leather band, rinse the surface under the water tap, find a suitable flat plate, long or round, and we begin to cut the crab step by step. I took out this crab 2 hours early to thaw, one is too hard to cut, the other is to eat soft and more delicious, but there is no restaurant chef's kind of hand strength and fast knife, direct frozen crab will be cut, the cut surface will be better, can also be cut thinner.
Cut off the two crab claws and lay them flat with a knife to crush them for later.
The crab lid is cut directly with a knife to leave two horns attached to the crab body.
Open it to see whether this crab is good or not, whether it is worth it or not, this crab, play seven or eight points.
Pull the crab cover down the two horns.
Crab gills and crab navels are dug out, of which the crab navel has no meat, but it can be kept first, and when it is plated, it can be placed under the crab cover to look fuller.
The triangular stomach of the head was cut off, and some small shells next to it were cut off, leaving no flesh and looking clean.
The tips of the 8 crab claws are all cut off, leaving only the upper part of the crab legs with meat.
Cut the body in opposites, each half of the crab body into 4 pieces, each piece connected to a crab claw.
I am a rectangular plate, so the crab blocks are placed vertically, and the large disc can put each piece of crab body flat, so that it is arranged in a circle, like a flower, and it looks better. Put the crab claws on as well.
The sharp corners of the two crab covers, and then slice some shells, so that the red paste is exposed a little more, and it is better to put it out.
Putting the crab cap on it, I padded the crab navel under the crab cover, which flattened it and highlighted the fullness of the crab cover.
Although it is not as good as a professional chef, but the family treats guests, such a plate of salty crab is already very face-saving.