Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Coconut Crab

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Coconut crab is not your regular kinda crab. It is the largest land-living anthropod and you can find them mostly along the coastal forest regions of many Indo-Pacific islands. Okay that is a bit too scientific for me but for more info, you can find it here.

My first encounter with this crab was at shook restaurant a few years back and I tell you, I have never seen anything like it before. My experience with crabs are only limited to opening cans to make crab cakes or some kinda hor d evrous but this is something else.

The crab is so damn strong and you really have to be careful handling it. You don't want your hands or your fingers getting clawed so that is why I got Chef Johann to do it. He is much more an expert when it comes to this type of stuff.

It might look kinda nasty and ugly but the meat actually tasted really good. It's kinda like a mixture of crab meat and coconut at the same time, which is very unique. The reason for it was the crab loves to eat coconut. They will climb up, get the coconut and using their incredibly strong claws to break the shells and eat the meat. Weird right, but it's true and that is why they cost a bundle. It is also in that what you call "exotic food" category.

The cooking part is pretty easy, just some salt, pepper and that's it. We don't really want to mess with the real flavor of the crab. The hard part is when you have to kill it. So, this is the first part of the video. You can actually hear the crab screamed. Oohh!