My Spanish Christmas brown crab dressed with sparkling cava | Txangurro al cava
Back in Spain, we eat a lot of shellfish and crustacea on Christmas Day, anything from crab to barnacles to langoustines. Every Christmas Eve we go to our family house in the mountains of Madrid to spend Christmas together. This recipe for crab with cava is a Christmas staple in my family and is my uncle Julian’s favorite recipe. He taught me how to prepare it when I was about twelve years old – I suspect now that he was bored of preparing it every year and wanted someone to take over the responsibility. So now I’m passing it on to you – I hope you enjoy it!
INGREDIENTS
1 large brown crab, about 1 kg in weight
50 ml Spanish cava
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
Preparation
Place the crab into the freezer for 2 hours before cooking. This will put it into a deep sleep so it won’t suffer when it is cooked.
Bring a large pan pot of salted water to the boil and drop in the sleeping crab. When the water comes back to the boil, cook for 15 minutes per kg of crab. Remove the crab from the pan and plunge into a bowl of iced water to cool it down.
Open the crab carefully, pushing against its belly with your thumbs and taking care not to break the back shell. Remove and discard the grey-white gills and stomach sac and then pick out all the crabmeat, including all the white meat from the legs and claws. Clean the shell cavity and set aside.
Dress the crab meat with a bit of salt and pepper, drizzle a small squeeze of the juice from the lemon, pour a shot of cava and give it all a stir.
With the help of a spoon add the dressed crab into the shell and it is ready to eat!
