The Andes · Volume 46, The Two Milks, the Azotea and the Covered Pot
Encocao de cangrejo azul
El Valle, Bahía Solano, the northern Chocó
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 67 sources in the brief
Blue land crab claws and legs cooked in a sofrito of azotea herbs and the first coconut milk, for half an hour. Eurosina Valencia Sanclemente was born on 13 October 1964, has twelve children, and learned from her mother Modesta Sanclemente Rivas; the crabs came from the island of Tinti, and she gives every quantity by weight in the SENA book. She discards the body, which "no aporta ningún sabor" (adds no flavour), and the intestines, which are "básicamente barro" (basically mud). The blue land crab is not sold in Britain; a brown crab's claws and legs, cooked the same way, are the substitute.
As tradition built it
Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 5 blue land crabs, or the claws and legs of 2 large brown crabs
- 1 litre first coconut milk
- 10g cilantro cimarrón
- 10g poleo
- 10g albahaca negra, black basil
- 10g cebolla de rama
- 70g tomate chonto, or a plum tomato
- 10g garlic
- 50g red onion
- 10g ají dulce
- 5g oreganón
- 5g salt
- 10ml oil
- to serve white rice
Method
- Kill the crabs. Cut the claws and legs from the body and trim the tips of the legs. Scrub the claws and legs with a coarse brush. Discard the body, keeping the roe if the crab is female, and remove the intestines.
- Chop the vegetables and herbs fine: the cilantro cimarrón, poleo, albahaca negra, cebolla de rama, tomate chonto, garlic, red onion, ají dulce and oreganón.
- In a roomy pot, make a sofrito of the herbs and vegetables in the oil.
- Add the crabs and do not stir.
- Add the coconut milk at once and cook 30 minutes over a low heat.
- Season with the salt and serve, with rice.
What a modern chef changes
The crab's own stock under the milk
Rungs 2 and 4
Method
- Roast the discarded shells and simmer them 40 minutes in 500ml of water, strain through a chinois, and use that stock as the water for pressing the coconut: the milk tastes of crab before the crab goes in.
- Crack the claws before they go in the pot so the milk reaches the meat; the tradition cracks them with a stone.
- Hold the pot at a bare simmer, uncovered, with the first milk going in in two stages, half at the start and half for the last 5 minutes.
- Serve with a titoté rice, which the same book's cooks make from the oil's residue.