The Donostia-style crab is a great Basque cuisine classic, which appears quite frequently on Christmas tables. Its main ingredient is spider crab -or better yet, spider crab-, which not exactly the most affordable seafood, and less on these dates. So this year, fueled by inflation and rising food priceswe have decided to come up with a low-cost version.
To achieve a taste of the sea and a similar texture, we combine prawns -which can be perfectly defrosted- and mussels. And in the rest, we strictly respect the traditional recipe, with its stir-fry of vegetables, tomato and brandy, and its gratin with breadcrumbs and butter. Does it taste the same as the real txangurro? No, but it looks like it. Is it very good? Yes, and if you serve it to the family when I have a couple of drinks in my body, they won’t even know. The preparation, as always, in the video above.
TXANGURRO A LA DONOSTIARRA IN ‘LOW COST’ VERSION
Ingredients
For 4-6 people, as an aperitif
- 16 raw prawns (they can be frozen)
- 16 large mussels
- 3 level tablespoons of butter
- 1 spring onion
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ small leek
- 2 small chillies
- 3 tablespoons crushed tomato
- 3 tablespoons of fried tomato
- 150ml brandy
- 1 tablespoon breadcrumbs, preferably homemade
- chopped fresh chives
- Salt
Preparation
- Heat a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Brush the prawns with a little oil and pass them through a very hot pan for half a minute on each side. Leave them on a plate.
- Put the mussels in the pan with a splash of water and cover. When they are open, transfer them to a bowl along with all the liquid they have released.
- Put a little butter in the same pan with the chillies. Add the finely chopped garlic, onion and leek. Salt and cook over low heat until soft, about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Meanwhile, remove the shells from the mussels and peel the prawns without throwing away the heads. If they are a little raw, nothing happens because they will finish cooking later.
- Finely chop the mussels and tails.
- Remove the chilli from the pan, drizzle with the brandy and allow it to reduce.
- Add the crushed tomato and the fried tomato. Season with salt and pepper and let it cook for five to 10 minutes.
- Add to the sauce the liquid from the mussels and the juice from some of the prawn heads. Let it reduce a bit.
- Finish by adding the prawn tails and the chopped mussels. Turn off the heat, stir and let it rest covered for a couple of minutes. Correct salt.
- Put the mixture in a small oven dish, in some ramekins or in the shell of some crabs. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and chives.
- Spread a few sheets of butter on top and grill in the oven for about five minutes.
- Serve with more chives on top.
If you make this recipe, share the result on your social networks with the hashtag #RecipesComidista. And if it goes wrong, complain to the Defender of the Cook by sending an email to [email protected]
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