My mom brought home a big bag of fish and crustaceans that we had to scramble to clean, cook, and give away to folksies who like seafood. Well, technically, the fish were from a fresh water fishpond, not the sea—which is salt water, fyi. And technically, it was my dad who did the scrambling and the cleaning. He boiled some huge crabs. I took one, and because we didn’t have one of those… what do you call them? Those pliers-like things that you crack crabs with? Anyway, we didn’t have one of those, so I took the hammer from my dad’s toolbox and pounded away at the poor crab, and harvested the meat and fat. And made crabmeat omelet. And named the recipe Hammered Crab Omelet. And thought, people might think I dunked the crab in a vat of beer to get it drunk so I could have my way with it, as it were. And shrugged because it’s a nice image anyway. And thought, what the hell does “as it were” mean? And digressed so far away from the beaten path that it took me ages to get back on track. And used 2 effin’ clichés and mixed metaphors in a single sentence. And made some adjustments to the recipe to make it, in future, tastier. And finally posted said revised recipe in this blog…
Ingredients:
Meat and fat from one humongous crab (don’t know how that translates to pounds or kilos)
2 large green/red bell peppers, diced
2 medium-sized tomatoes
juice of 5-6 calamansi (or lemon)
garlic and onion to sauté
salt, pepper, spices (like basil, garlic powder, chili pepper flakes or hot sauce), to taste
mustard, to taste
4-5 eggs
oil and butter for frying
Procedure:
1. Mix crabmeat/fat, bell peppers, tomatoes, calamansi juice, and seasonings.
2. Beat the eggs (ever so slightly, my dear. Ever so slightly). Season with salt.
3. Pour a small amount of oil in a semi-hot pan (canola, for less guilt founded on self-delusion) and add a pat of butter.
4. Saute garlic and onion. Add crab mixture. Saute for a few minutes then set aside.
5. In same pan, pour beaten eggs. When the eggs are almost set, return crab mixture to pan. Fold egg over the meat.
6. Slide onto a serving dish.
7. Enjoy.
… And stopped writing.
