No, it’s not a misspelling of the name of the late Harry Crabb, Singapore radio personality and news reader. I’m referring to Chinese mitten crabs, often referred to as hairy crabs.
These crustaceans, the best of which are from Yangcheng Lake, a freshwater lake about two miles northeast of the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, make their appearance every last quarter of the year.
Yes, the hairy crab season is from September to December: in September, female hairy crabs are available and mostly the males ones are available in November and December.
They are not gigantic like those Sri Lanka mud crabs; hairy crabs are not huge, they weigh about 200 to 250 grams, and each is no bigger than the size of a human palm. Their body is of a dark green, and their legs a golden yellow with mitten like “fur.”
Restaurants sell lots of these crabs (live) during this period. The Chinese only consider live seafood swimming in tanks as “fresh.” Since the pandemic, I’ve not had any hairy crabs. It used to be an annual, albeit, expensive ritual for me. The main reason why people eat hairy crabs is to savor the taste and mouth feel of the milt in the male crabs and the roe in the female. The taste – and more importantly to me personally, the mouth feel, that almost oily silkiness in your mouth – is impossible to describe using words. That’s the reason people are willing to pay up to a hundred bucks a crab!
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be treated to a Hairy Crab Set Menu at Andrew Tjioe’s Tunglok Signatures:
First course was pan-fried buns stuffed with hairy crab meat and roe.
Double-boiled shark’s fin in pumpkin stock. Now, before anyone jumps on to the anti-shark’s fin bandwagon, please be educated! Not all sharks are endangered! And fishermen, unless they are paid by Greenpeace for propaganda purposes, do not cut fins off sharks, then throw the sharks back into the sea. Fact: shark meat fetches more money that the fins.
I was served a male hairy crab weighing 220 grams. Yes, they weigh each crab! Each is priced differently according to its weight. The waiter removed its legs.
I opened the crab and savored it. The roe of the female is harder and the milt of the male, also coloured orange, is creamy and sticky.
Next, the rest of the crab was served.
Next course was a Tunglok signature – coffee pork rib.
Scallion oil noodles with fried cod was next.
The meal ended with chilled ginger tea jelly with osmanthus.