Having eaten too much scallion oil, steamed blue crab, and the popular pickled crab dish this season, I suddenly wanted to pair blue crab with salted egg yolk while browsing the market today. So I bought the ingredients and got home to cook it.
Materials
Steps for making salted egg yolk swimming crab (homestyle version)
Clean the outside of the swimming crab.
I first used scissors to cut the crab, and then waited a few minutes before proceeding with the next step of disassembly.
When cleaning, remove the crab gills, then clean the remaining small amount of dirt that the crab naturally carries, and then cut it in half with scissors.
Cleaning and disassembly completed
Prepare scallions, ginger, garlic, and dried chili peppers.
The salted egg yolks were steamed for about 10 minutes. I used 5 egg yolks here, but 3 should be enough. After steaming, remove the egg yolks and mash them.
It wasn't completely crushed; some large particles remained. The degree of crushing at this step depends on personal preference.
Prepare some starch (enough to coat the exposed parts of four crab pieces). I used sweet potato starch, but you can also use cornstarch.
After coating the crab, remember to gently shake it to remove any excess powder. This coating step is mainly to lock in the moisture of the crab meat.
Heat oil in a wok, then add ginger and garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add dried chili peppers, keeping the oil slightly spicy to prevent the chili peppers from burning due to overheating.
First, gently place four pieces of crab meat, with the starchy side facing down, vertically into the oil without turning them over. Then, add the crab shell and crab legs. Once the crab meat has set, you can gently flip it over.
At this point, you can sprinkle in a spoonful of cooking wine, and you can also add a small spoonful of white sugar to enhance the flavor as needed.
Once the crabs have set and their shells have turned red, you can evenly sprinkle the prepared salted egg yolks on top.
Turn the heat to medium, add two spoonfuls of water, cover the pot and cook for about a minute (observe whether the salted egg yolks in the pot have burned).
Then you can take the crabs out in order, and place the lid on top of the crab meat.
Add a handful of chopped green onions to the remaining salted egg yolk liquid in the pot, and use the residual heat of the pot to cook the green onions until they are just cooked through.
Then pour the entire pot of salted egg yolk sauce evenly over the crab.
