Dungeness Crab with a surprising summer salad!
It’s a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK and the sun is blasting down, what better way to celebrate than with this Vietnamese noodle salad, swimming with Dungeness crab, prawns and spicy citrus dressing. Topped with crispy shallots, It’s hot, hot, hot – perfect for a summer supper in the garden!
I bought my crabmeat, prepared by a small fishmonger actually in Dungeness, a great little place with regular updates on their website about ‘what’s biting’ so you can check out the catch reports and buy seasonal fish, all caught locally. If you happen to be down this way I also strongly recommend you check out the Dungeness snack shack and take a camera – the skeletons of boats left on the beach make for fantastic photos.
Vietnamese Summer Salad with Dungeness Crab
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Author: Kaylie Kist
Recipe type: Summer salad
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients
- For the salad
- 200g locally sourced crab meat (I used Dungeness)
- 150g organic cooked prawns
- 150G glass noodles
- 1 small bunch fresh Thai basil, roughly chopped
- 1 Florida grapefruit
- 4 Spring onions finely sliced
- 1 small bunch fresh mint, roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch fresh coriander, roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch fresh Thai basil, roughly chopped
- For the dressing
- 80ml fish sauce
- 80ml Chinese rice vinegar
- 2 rounded tbsp caster sugar
- 1-2 bird’s eye chillies, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- Juice 3 limes
- For the crispy Sussex shallots
- 2 banana shallots, sliced
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
- Around 300ml sunflower oil for frying
Instructions
- For the crispy Sussex shallots
- Toss the shallots in the egg yolk
- Coat with the flour, working the flour all over the shallots.
- Heat the oil in a small frying pan and line a plate with plenty of kitchen paper.
- Once the oil starts to shimmer, drop in a piece of onion.
- Drop in the shallots and fry for 1-2 minutes until lightly golden brown
- Remove with a slotted spoon onto the paper-lined plate, Set aside.
- To make the dressing
- Put the fish sauce, rice vinegar and sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, giving it a stir now and then. It will smell very strong as it heats but it’s meant to!
- Once the sugar has melted, take the pan off the heat and stir through the chilli, garlic, spring onion and the juice of 1 lime. Allow to cool
- Using a sharp knife, slice the top and bottom off the Florida grapefruit. Peel by slicing off strips of skin, cutting vertically down the side. Remove as much pith as possible but leave all the flesh. Once you’ve got rid of the outer pith, slice into the segments and remove them whole, getting out as much flesh as you can.
- Roughly chop into chunks. Discard the centre and any pith.
- For the salad
- Boil water and cook the glass noodles for 4 minutes. Rinse under cold water once cooked.
- Stir the crabmeat, noodles, prawns and herbs through, using a large serving bowl.
- Mix in the grapefruit chunks and coat everything in the dressing
- Let everything soak together for a minute or so, then scatter the crispy shallots on top.
- It may need an extra squeeze of lime juice, add it as you see fit then serve immediately whilst sitting in the sunshine!
