two year tripThe town of Kep on the southern coastline of Cambodia is famous for its fresh crabs, so when we visited we just had to try them.
Welcome to Kep. Not sure I could eat a whole one of those, mind..
At the end of the riverside restaurants is the Kep market, where crab nets are pulled in and live crabs are bought by weight then cooked to order immediately. We watched the whole process and I daresay you cannot get fresher crabs than this..
From the sea
Out of the basket
Into the pan, where they get a fork prong in the face. It’s pretty brutal and I imagine it’s the equivalent of a garden fork up the nose. That’s gotta sting
The crabs are handed off to a row of ladies that tend the cooking pots. They add a cup or two of water and put them on to boil
When the crabs were cooked, they were handed back to us in a carrier bag. Mmmm.. a bag of crabs!
Tasty. And a little crunchy
I have a thing about crabs – they rate along with spiders!! I also passed out once trying to prepare one, so I tend to keep to crab that doesn’t look like it when it hits the plate. How did you pick out the meat from them?
It’s pretty gruesome, and I hope you don’t pass out from my description ;o)
Essentially we twisted the legs off, one by one, then pulled them apart at the joints. I found that the best meat was in the underside of the body, as it took the least amount of effort for the most reward – I enjoyed the crabs a lot, but I prefer food that I don’t have to faff with!
In a restaurant I think we’d usually get ‘implements’ to help, such as nutcrackers or pliers to crack the leg shell, which can be pretty tough.