Black Pepper Crawfish with Fried Garlic 蒜香黑胡椒小龙虾

As mentioned in this post, I'll be sharing the recipes that I have cooked for my family in July.  This is one of the 3 dinners I have cooked in July for the #cookforfamily, as seen below.

Well, I cooked almost everyday for my family, except it's not an everyday thing that we are able to eat together. We had dinner together on 3 occasions in July and this happened to be one of of the 3.

What we had on that dinner, were:

• Steamed Tofu with Prawns
• Sweet and Sour Squid
• Lotus Roots Soup with Peanut, which will be shared on a separate post.
• Black Pepper Crawfish with Fried Garlic, which is what I'll be sharing in this post

This is a remake of an older recipe I shared in 2007. I tweaked it a little to add roasted garlic to make it more fragrant.

You can find the recipe for the roasted garlic here. You can use fried garlic too if you are unable to make roasted garlic. It works the same. You can use crabs instead of crawfish if you like.

Ingredients:

• 3 Crayfish, scrub to clean and chopped in half
• 3 tablespoon Butter
• 2 Red Chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 4 tablespoon Black Pepper, crushed
• 1/2 tablespoon Minced Garlic
• 1 tablespoon Minced Onion
• 1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 2 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1/2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 5 tablespoon water
• 2 teaspoon Sugar
• 3 tablespoon Roasted or Fried Garlic
• Cornflour for dusting
• Oil for frying

How to do it:

1. Dry-fry black pepper till fragrant.
2. Remove and set aside.
3. Pat dry the crayfish and dust with flour
4. Deep fry till golden brown
5. Heat wok, add the butter.
6. When the butter has melted and begins to sizzles, add the garlic, onions and chilli and stir fry fragrant.
7. Add the oyster sauce, light soya sauce, sugar, pepper and cooking wine.
8. Mix well.
9. Add in the water.
10. Add the crawfish and stir fry on high heat till the sauce has dry.
11. Spinkle the roasted or fried garlic.
12. Toss to coat well.
13. Dish and serve.

Note:

• You can add some curry leaves when you are frying garlic and onion to add fragrance.
• Remove when the leaves turn dark green and are crispy. Add them only at the end for garnishing.

Steam Chinese Marrow with Clawfish

Happy New Year to you!

It's going to be a exciting year for me, taxing year too. Both my kids will be going to new school tomorrow. My son in Primary 1 and my daughter in Nursery.

My daughter will be going to her brother's old school and she is very familiar with the school environment and teachers there. So I'm not as worried. It's my son whom I'm worried about. Primary school life is so different, more disciple needed, much longer school hours, etc.

I'm praying that he can cope and adapt to the new environment and new school rules fast. As both my kids will be in different session, I might not be able to blog as much. So pardon me if I go missing for a while. I'll still blog as much as I could.

I know it might be a bit early for Chinese New Year. It's still 26 days away. But if you are thinking of what to cook for your CNY dinner, here's a suggestion.

Before you go to the recipe, my best wishes to you for a great year ahead and may you always stay in the pink of health!

Ingredients:

• 2 Crayfish, meat removed from shells
• 1 Chinese Marrow or Hairy Gourd (节瓜）
• 20 Wolfberries (枸杞子), soaked to soften
• 150g Stock
• Salt to taste
• Sugar to taste
• Cornflour mixture (thickener)
• Cooking Oil

Marinade:

• 1 tablespoon Cooking Wine
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1/2 Egg White
• 1 teaspoon Corn Flour

How to do it:

1. Cut crayfish into smaller pieces.
2. Marinate the crayfish meat for 20 minutes.
3. Skin the Chinese Marrow and cut into equal thickness.
4. Remove the center seeds by using a circle cookie cutter or just a spoon.
5. Blanch Chinese Marrow rings in hot oil for 1 minute. It helps keep the rings in shape and seal in the sweetness. Skip this step is you like.
6. Add in the wolfberries to the stock.
7. Add salt to taste.
8. Drain the rings and add into the stock
9. Simmer for 3 minutes or till soft, depending on your taste.
10. Retain the stock.
11. Drain crayfish meat from marinade and stuff in the rings in a deep dish.
12. Steam for 12 minutes or till crayfish is thoroughly cooked.
13. When steaming the rings, prepare the sauce.
14. Add sugar to taste to the previously used stock for simmering the rings.
15. When the sauce starts to bubbles, gradually stir in the thickener to thicken the sauce.
16. Pour sauce over the steam rings with crayfish and serve.

Note:

• You can replace the crayfish with prawns.
• Remove heads and shells of prawns. Slit the back of prawns, devien and clean them before use.
• You can curl your prawns like what I did for this dish or simply use it as it is.
• Just place the back in the ring, that is, tail pointing up.
• DO NOT add egg white and corn flour in the marinade if using whole prawn.
• If using smaller prawns, you might want to consider either getting smaller/thinner Chinese Marrow so there the prawn can fill up the hole or shell the prawns and cut into smaller pieces like what I did with the crayfish.
• Adjust the steaming time accordingly as prawns takes a shorten time to cook. Over cooking will make the prawn tough.

Black Pepper Crayfish

I love seafood. I used to cook Chilli Crab a lot but I have stop cooking crabs a long time now. Black Pepper Crab is one of my favourites too. Since I don't buy crabs anymore, I have find other replacements for crabs.

In this case, I'm using Crayfish. It taste almost as good as crabs! Take a look at the photo below. One whole piece of meat right into your mouth! How do you like that?! Hope you are not salivating now! hehehe ...

Ingredients:

• 3 Crayfish, scrub to clean and chopped in half
• 3 tablespoon Butter
• 2 Red Chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 4 tablespoon Black Pepper, crushed
• 1 tablespoon Minced Garlic
• 1 tablespoon Minced Onion
• 1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 2 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1/2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 5 tablespoon water
• 2 teaspoon Sugar
• Cornflour for dusting
• Oil for frying

How to do it:

1. Dry-fry black pepper till fragrant.
2. Remove and set aside.
3. Pat dry the crayfish and dust with flour
4. Deep fry till golden brown
5. Heat wok, add the butter.
6. When the butter has melted and begins to sizzles, add the garlic, onions and chilli and stir fry fragrant.
7. Add the oyster sauce, light soya sauce, sugar, pepper and cooking wine.
8. Mix well.
9. Add in the water.
10. Add the crayfish and stir fry on high heat till the sauce has dry.
11. Dish and serve.

Note:

• If you can't take it too spicy, leave out the red chilli or add more if you want it more spicy.
• Replace light soy sauce with 2 teaspoon of dark soy sauce instead for colour, if you like.
• You can add some curry leaves when you are frying garlic and onion to add fragrance.
• Remove when the leaves turn dark green and are crispy. Add them only at the end for garnishing.