Cua đồng is a nutritious food rich in calcium. Cua soup and riêu cua are famous dishes in Vietnam. But not everyone knows how to cook delicious cua soup. Nowadays, most women don’t cook cua at home but hire someone to do it for them.
There are many proteins in cua that help enhance nutrition. When cooking cua, you will see a protein clot that floats up. The housewives must ensure that they always have this piece of cua when cooking cua soup or riêu cua, the more the better.
Why grind cua with salt?
To make the cua clot, the protein content must be sufficient and of good quality. Therefore, when cooking cua soup or riêu cua and wanting them to clot more, in addition to choosing good cua, you also need a technique to make the cua meat clot together, avoiding melting during cooking.
And salt crystals are an experience that helps cua meat clot better. Moreover, salt crystals are also a spice that helps preserve the ground cua meat longer. Therefore, when grinding or smashing cua, you should add a little salt crystals. But you should add them during the grinding process so that the salt crystals dissolve along with the cua meat. When filtered, they will help distribute evenly and clot better when cooking. But do not add too much because there will be seasoning powder when cooking, or else it will be too salty. Furthermore, adding salt crystals to grinding with cua also prevents the cua from spoiling quickly, avoiding the transformation of protein into harmful substances.
So when buying cua, you should remind the seller to add a little salt to the grinding process because not all sellers remember to do this for you.
How to choose cua with lots of meat?
To make the cua clot with lots of meat, the cua must be mature, the meat must be firm and not flaccid. Small and immature cua will have flaccid meat, so when cooked, the meat will melt. Op cua and tuan trang cua types have less meat. Male cua has tough and chewy meat, while female cua has soft and fatty meat. Therefore, when buying cua, you should choose female cua, with intact and curved shells, healthy cua, and no eggs. Cua on the full moon often molts and gives birth, so it is lean and not delicious. Cua at the end of the month and the beginning of the moon are more delicious.
Remove the water in the cua body
When you split the cua, you will see that both the body and the shell of the cua have a brownish liquid. This liquid will cause the cua to have an unpleasant smell when cooked. Therefore, you need to wash this liquid off before grinding.
If you grind the cua manually, it will be more fragrant than grinding outside the market. Pay attention to the grinder of the seller, avoid the dirty grinder sticks to the cua from many batches, it can be dangerous. Dead cua and decaying cua will cause protein to transform, which is very harmful. Pay attention to the grinder of the cua shop because not all shops are clean, so if the grinder has a bad odor and has not been cleaned for a long time, the cua you choose will still have an unpleasant smell and be careful of food poisoning.
Pay attention to the heat and you can add this to make the cua clot more
When cooking cua soup, you should simmer it over medium heat for the cua to float up. You only stir when placing the pot on the stove and stir in one direction, not stirring in the opposite direction, which will make the cua meat melt. Let the cua meat float up on its own, then scoop it out into a bowl. Then bring it to a boil again before adding vegetables or seasoning.
If you want the cua meat to clot more and the water to be clearer, you can beat an egg and pour it into the pot before cooking. Both canh cua and riêu cua should follow this principle to make the cua meat clot more. Then scoop the cua meat clot out and then add vegetables or sour seasonings to the cua soup.
If you want the cua meat clot to be soft, you should not leave them in the pot for too long because high heat will make the protein dry and firm again. When the cua meat clot floats up, you should immediately scoop it out into a bowl. At that time, they are fully cooked and softest to eat, cooking them more will not be as delicious.
Fragrant gạch cua
There are 2 ways to cook according to 2 tastes
Some families like clear cua soup without the oily aroma, so the cua meat will be added directly into the cooking water to float with the cua meat.
Other families like to fry fragrant gạch cua and add it to the soup or cook riêu cua, so they should follow the method of frying fragrant gạch cua as follows:
Add oil into a hot pan, add fragrant fried shallots, pour the gạch cua into the pan and stir to release the aroma, add some seasoning. Then pour this fragrant fried gạch cua on top of the cua meat clot that you scooped out in the previous step. When eating, scoop the cua soup or riêu cua into a bowl, then place a piece of cua meat on top of the bowl.
The standard cua soup is clear water, evenly distributed green vegetables in the bowl, with cua meat clot floating on top.
Especially in the summer, cua soup served with salted cà pháo is a specialty of many northern provinces and in family meals.
For riêu cua, instead of adding vegetables, you should add sour seasonings such as lime, tamarind, or tomato sauce…
Preserving cua for long-term use
If you want to preserve cua for a long time, you should note: If you preserve the whole cua, the fragrance and the cua meat will be preserved better than ground cua.
If you preserve ground cua, you should do the following: Remember to put the cua in a box tray and add water. This water helps keep the ground cua from drying out and becoming tough during storage.
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