Casquinha de siri

As tradition built it

Casquinha de siri

Serves 4 to 6 as a starter. About 30 minutes.

Ingredients

• roughly 500g fresh picked crab meat, ideally the meat itself rather than reformed crab sticks
• 1 to 2 cloves garlic
• 1, small, chopped onion
• a small handful, chopped coriander
• to taste pepper
• 2 tablespoons, or to taste dendê
• 250ml, or to taste coconut milk
• a little farinha de mandioca, to top

Method

1. Sauté the crab meat with garlic, onion, coriander and pepper.
2. Finish with a spoonful of dendê and a splash of coconut milk.
3. Pack the mixture back into cleaned crab shells or small ramekins.
4. Top with a little farinha de mandioca and grill or bake briefly until the top browns.

Notes

The Bahian journalist Isabel Oliveira, writing for the regional paper A Tarde, profiles a named shellfish gatherer from Ilha de Maré, Verônica Farias, who supplies Salvador's restaurants and markets with crab meat picked using technique learned directly from her mother.

What a modern chef changes

A dehydrated crust and Big Green Egg char

Rung 4

Method

1. Dehydrate a portion of the farinha de mandioca topping briefly before use, for a crisper, more consistent gratin crust under the grill than a straight-from-the-packet flour gives.
2. Finish the filling with raw dendê stirred through off the heat rather than only the dendê cooked into the sauté, Rung 4.
3. Achieve a light final crust under the Big Green Egg's direct heat rather than a domestic grill, for a genuine char the shell itself can carry without overcooking the crab beneath it.