Recipe: Thai Spanner Crab Omlettes
One of my favourite omelettes of all time, I could eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner every day. Cooked prawns or fish are a good alternative if you can’t get hold of crab meat. This is where using good eggs makes a big difference, both for colour and their ability to hold together when wrapping them up.
Thai Spanner Crab and Rice Omelettes with Avocado, Cucumber and Chilli
Serves 4
Ingredients:
• 2 cups cooked jasmine rice
• 50 gm golden shallots, finely diced
• 1 stalk lemongrass, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbs ginger, grated
• 1 small red chilli, finely chopped
• stalks of ½ bunch coriander, finely chopped
• 2 tbs sesame oil
• 200 gm cooked spanner crab meat
• ½ cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• 8 eggs
• 50 ml cold water
• 4 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 avocado, finely sliced
• 1 Lebanese cucumber, finely shaved with a peeler or mandolin
• ½ cup mixed coriander leaves, Vietnamese mint and Thai basil
• 1 large red chilli, julienned
• 1 kaffir lime leaf, very finely sliced
• 75 ml fish sauce
• 50 ml lime juice
• 2 tbs palm sugar
• 2 tbs fried shallots
Method:
• Fry the shallots, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, chilli and coriander stalks in sesame oil until fragrant.
• Add the rice and fry for two minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the crab meat and chopped coriander. Season to taste with salt.
• Whisk together the fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar.
• Whisk together the eggs and water.
• In a non-stick pan heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and fry a quarter of the egg mixture until just set. Gently slide out of the pan onto a clean workbench.
• Repeat this process another 3 times so you have 4 omelettes.
• Place a quarter of the crab rice mixture on the front third of each omelette and roll up into a rectangular parcel.
• Carefully transfer to a baking tray.
• Gently mix the herbs, avocado, cucumber, julienned chilli and kaffir lime leaves.
• Warm the crab omelettes in a 180°C oven for 5 minutes.
• Transfer to plates using a wide palette knife and top with the salad mixture.
• Pour over the fish sauce dressing, sprinkle with the fried shallots and serve immediately.
