sean's mystery box recipe: soft shell crab bao buns

We challenged Head Chef Sean to a mystery box challenge and we’ve got to say we’re pretty impressed with the results!

We gave him red cabbage, soft shell crabs, chillies, ginger, coriander and spring onions, and allowed him to use our kitchen larder for some store cupboard heroes to add to his dish.

Sean’s thoughts immediately went to deep frying the crab. “As soon as I saw the soft shell crab, it reminded me of a dish I had when I was away on holiday with my wife, which brought back happy memories – so I thought I’d make my own take on it.” Soft shell crabs are crabs that have recently shed their old shell, so they’re still soft – this means you can eat them as they are.

And what about the rest of the ingredients? “For the sauce, I thought something nice and green would be a great colour contrast. I used some wild garlic that I foraged myself to make an oil, and using the oil I made a mayonnaise with some green chillies for a wee kick. The cabbage was a bit left field (thanks guys!) when it was included along with the other ingredients which were more Asian-inspired, so I thought the best thing to do with that was make a slaw to cut through the richness of everything else.”

Sounds good, right? The recipe makes six bao buns, and we’d suggest buying your buns for a speedier dinner (they’re readily available in most large supermarkets or Asian grocers).

We’d love to see if your photos if you make them at home – don’t forget to tag us on Instagram and Facebook.

ingredients

For the Asian-style slaw
300g red cabbage, shredded
½ small red chilli
10g ginger
5g coriander, leaves shredded
1 spring onion, sliced
½ lime, juice only

For the wild garlic and chilli aioli
30g egg yolk
300ml wild garlic oil (recipe below)
1 green chilli, finely sliced
½ lime, juice only
10g sea salt

For the deep-fried soft shell crab
100g corn flour
100g plain flour
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp cayenne
300ml sparkling water
Vegetable oil
6 soft shell crabs, each cut into four pieces

6 bao buns
Micro herbs (optional)

method

For the Asian-style slaw
1. Finely sliced the red cabbage, then cut the chilli and ginger in fine matchsticks.
2. Add to a large bowl and sprinkle over some table salt. Leave this for 10 minutes (it’ll soften the mixture and help remove some of the moisture).
3. Finish the slaw with some shredded coriander and spring onions to freshen it up, and a squeeze of lime juice to balance the flavours.

For the wild garlic and chilli aioli
1. Make the wild garlic oil, blanch 500g of wild garlic and refresh in iced water, then squeeze all the moisture out. Place in a highspeed blender with 500ml of vegetable oil and blend on full speed for 3 minutes. Pass through a muslin cloth.
2. To make the aioli, place the chilli in a bowl with the egg yolk and lime juice. Slowly whisk in the wild garlic oil until emulsified (basically, until it looks like mayonnaise). Then season with salt.

For the deep-fried soft shell crab
1. Add all of the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and whisk in the sparkling water.
2. Dip in the crabs (gently shaking off the excess) and fry for 5-6 minutes. If you have a deep fat fryer, then turn this to 180 degrees. Otherwise, you can fill a deep pan with vegetable oil. To test the heat, you can use a thermometer or add a small piece of the batter to the pan – it’ll be hot enough when the batter starts to fry.

To assemble
1. Heat your bao buns, as per packet instructions.
2. Add a spoonful of the aioli into each bao and then a small handful of slaw.
3. Add four pieces of your crab. Sean topped his bao with micro herbs as he was feeling fancy, but you can leave these out or just add a bit more coriander.