Chili Crabs and Ham & Cheese Roll - Additions to my Cooking Portfolio

I love to cook and always will love cooking! I love to experiment and try new things. So far most of them have been successful. (Ahem, just lucky I guess...)

A couple of weeks ago, an officemate brought with her 2 crabs (aka: alimango) from her province and the challenge was for me to create something sumptuous out of it.

Crabs just happen to be one of my all-time favorites and since another friend of mine served up her version of Chili Crab just a month ago, I had to re-create it or at least create my own version.

I had absolutely no idea how to start; in fact my husband just told me to cook it the regular way - boiled in a pan with 7-up, water and some salt.

But nah, I just had to create something more than that and so I made my own version of Chili crabs and here is a picture.

I swear it's way yummier than it looks. In vernacular, I described the dish as "sabaw pa lang sud-an na!" (Even the soup can stand as the viand already.) Sorry it's the best translation I can come up as I am half awake and really sleepy. hehe..

Made from scratch but it went really well, I am going to work on improving the recipe as soon as I get my hands on another set of live crabs. The only thing I didn't like about cooking the crabs is hearing them still try to crawl out and save their lives while inside the pan and on the stove. I was almost in tears and had to have someone take over holding the pan cover until they no longer made squirming sounds. Other than that, everything was great most especially the eating part!! hehe ;-)

The pictures below were taken when no meat was left of the chili crab dish, only the soup. Proof that says "sabaw pa lang sud-an na!!" This is the "extra rice please" part of the session. ;-)

Another dish I recreated just yesterday was the Ham & Cheese Roll that an officemate (this is another officemate) brought to work and shared to everyone for her birthday. When I tasted it, I just had to make my own version and added a slice of cucumber to cut down the greasy aspect of the dish. I was thinking of adding a slice of ripe mango but didn't find fresh ones in the grocery. Anyway, here is the finished product which was cooked the same day I discovered it. I tried serving it with chili garlic sauce at first but it tastes better as is.

Over-all, my first take on these yummy dishes turned out really well, considering I mostly relied on intuition and on hastily given instructions. I think I'll make these for my son's birthday in November as well.

If you ever do re-create dishes and make it your own, hope you enjoy both the making and the eating part as I sure did! Bon apetite!!



nmead 10/11/13 @ 2:58am