Mitten Crab

[wiz_oz]

Check out this link on the BBC site. It is about the Chinese mitten crab.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4690988.stm

An earlier article from a link therein also call it the hairy crab and it is supposed to be a delicacy.

Can anyone confirm if it is the same hairy crab normally sold around the end of the year over there?

PS I mean sold over in China (not the UK).

[ala]

Shanghainese hairy crab 上海大闸蟹 (we locals call it douzáha, with English z) is a winterish food. It's pretty unique, I don't know if you can get it elsewhere. One of the few things people identify as Shanghainese cuisine besides the 小笼包 (small bamboo steamed meat buns). The authentic ones are pretty expensive due to limited supply and interbreeding with lower-caliber Japanese crabs.

Peking Duck is to Beijing as Shanghainese hairy crab is to Shanghai.

Shanghainese hairy crab steamed

It's got to be the easiest thing to cook in the world.

[aeon]

..and they're spreading like wildfire around the UK coast. I hope they are good eating, because we're going to have to eat loads of them if they aren't to completely colonise our coastline...

So any more recipe suggestions?

[wiz_oz]

Thanks , Ala

That's it. The Shanghai Hairy Crab was what I was refering to.

But is it the same ones as those mitten crabs in the UK?

I have tried it once but meat is quite coarse and it is not even meaty as well. Costs a fortune. Usually eaten for the roe. Rather prefer the blue swimmer and the mud crab.

[ala]

I think the Shanghai hairy crabs are the same as those that are ravaging European coastlines. The main reason is they get tagged along transcontinental ships.

In Shanghai, the hairy crab population is dwindling, so even more expensive now. The reason is that Japanese crabs are reeking havoc to the hairy crab population. There has been some proposal to get hairy crabs from Europe back to Shanghai to repopulate the breed. Both side wins.

Yeah you don't eat it for the meat (to get full), although the meat does have a peculiar taste, it's the roe that is special and abundant. It's an acquired taste, like most delicacies in the world.

[Gary Soup]

Here's some Hairy Crab wisdom dating back to the Song Dynasty, courtesy of honggao.net and (ahem) my own website:

Hairy Crab Wisdom

You can read the Chinese original at the link I provided on the page, but it's awfully hard to read because of the color scheme.