Casquinha de siri

As tradition built it

Casquinha de siri

Serves 1.

Ingredients

• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp onion, diced
• 2 pimentas doces (sweet peppers)
• 150g crab meat, picked
• 80ml coconut milk
• 1 tbsp tomato, seeded and diced
• 2 tbsp coriander, chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce (pomodoro)
• 10ml dendê oil
• juice of ½ lime
• to taste salt

To serve

• 1 cleaned crab shell
• to serve farofa de dendê and vinagrete

Method

1. Fry the garlic until golden.
2. Add the onion and the peppers and fry 3 minutes.
3. Add the crab and fry 3 minutes more.
4. Add the coconut milk, tomato, tomato sauce and coriander and cook 3 minutes.
5. Finish with the dendê and the lime juice. Let it reduce and check the salt.
6. Serve it in the crab shell, with farofa de dendê and vinagrete.

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.

The recipe is chef Pedro Rodrigues's, of Restaurante Margarida in Rio Vermelho, from Isabel Oliveira's column in A Tarde, which says the tradition lies in the shell itself. Deliene Mota, of Encantos da Maré, told her the seasoning must stay light, a thread of dendê and a little coconut milk, and that the shellfish gatherers' own seasoning is garlic, salt and white pepper. The column gives no oven, topping or grilling time.

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.