Food Art and Trompe L’Oeil  Mudcrab

It’s all in the presentation – well with Trompe L’Oeil that is the essence.  We used to run a cooking school in The School House at Port Douglas back in the nineties and mudcrab made a great ice breaker for the opening dinner.  People would come from all over the country to spend a week cooking and eating.  People seldom knew each other before they came.  We knew that it would be a messy affair with crab claw crackers and finger bowls so it is hard to be too self-conscious when you have your hands covered in sauce and crab! 

 

This was the inspiration for my Chilli Mudcrab trompe plate.  We used to get our mudcrabs from one of the great colourful identities of Cairns “Johnny Mudcrab”.  We would order them from old Johnny who spoke with the deep gravelly voice of a well-seasoned fisherman – I never met him but I imagined him to be a well-worn man in his fifties or sixties with a craggy suntanned face and stocky build, probably wearing an old faded T-shirt with Johnny Mudcrab across it, those hard wearing denim shorts and boots.  We never had time to drive from Port Douglas down to Cairns so he would send them up on the Red Line bus live in a box.

http://www.studio49gallery.com/#!the-trompe-loeil-plate-collection/c1alp

 

The bus driver would complain that the crabs were scratching to get out all the way.

Darren Lewtas, a local chef at the time, ran our first cooking school before we hosted the big names like David Thompson and Steve Manfredi, and cooked the most magnificent Thai Style Mud Crab dish.  I have called my trompe dish “Chilli Mudcrab” because that’s how I remember it – all dripping with a rich dark sauce that smelt of ginger and chilli, garlic and wine.  A deep robust dish that was as spectacular as it was delicious.  I wanted to always keep the memory of that dish alive, relive the moment.

Choose your favourite Trompe L'Oeil plate from the artisan works tab.

http://www.studio49gallery.com/#!food-art/c1wkl

 

 

Darren Lewtas’ Thai Style Mudcrab

1st preparation

One mudcrab – 900g to 1kg per person

250g mirepoix of root vegetables including:

Onion, celery, carrot, leek, ginger, garlic  and lemon grass

¼ litre dry white wine

 

Method

Place all ingredients in a heavy pot with a tightly fitting lid and steam for 10 minutes
Remove crab, clean and portion

 

2^nd preparation

Ingredients

2 teaspoons prepared red curry paste

1 large onion finely chopped

2 spring onions finely chopped

1 shredded beetroot

1 tablespoon fish sauce

¼ cup rice wine

½ cup loosely packed fresh coriander

 

 

Method

Combine all ingredients, except coriander and wine , in wok and cook over heat to just coloured
Add cleaned crab and wine
Cover the wok and cook until crab is very hot
Sprinkle with coriander and serve.