This recipe for crabe farci elevates the humble dressed crab into something very special, with the addition of lime, chilli, herbs and breadcrumbs this is a very fancy dressed crab.
If you want to serve this with in the crab shells, we would recommend buying as many dressed crabs as you have people to serve and then you can freeze any crabmeat you have left to use another day or just be generous with your filling.
Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a starter
INGREDIENTS
- 70g baguette (about ¼ of a baguette), slightly stale
- 3 tablespoons semi-skimmed milk
- 2 spring onions, roughly chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 flat-leaf parsley sprigs
- 1 thyme sprig, leaves picked
- 1/2 red chilli, seeded
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 200g mixed crabmeat (two dressed crabs would give you 280g of meat)
- 1 lime, juiced
- 3 tablespoons fine dried breadcrumbs
- lime wedges to serve
Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Soak the baguette in the milk for 10 minutes.
Put the spring onions, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme, and chilli in a food processor and blend until very finely chopped.
Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add the chopped onion mixture and cook for a minute. Add the crabmeat and lime juice and cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat.Squeeze the milk out of the bread. Put the bread in a food processor and blend to a purée.Add the bread to the crab. Put the pan over a medium heat and cook for 3–4 minutes, stirring regularly so it doesn’t stick to the pan. Season and remove from the heat.
Put the stuffing in small ramekins (if you used a dressed crab, fill the cleaned shell with the stuffing) and sprinkle the breadcrumbs over. Put in the oven for 10 minutes, or until golden. Serve hot, on its own, or with salad.