Roasted Garlic Dungeness Crab (Thanh Long Copycat)

Dungeness crab with cracked legs one a white plate and Thanh Long butter sauce

Roasted Garlic Dungeness Crab (Thanh Long Copycat)

Everyone knows that garlic butter goes with seafood. But this recipe for, inspired by the famous Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco, takes it a couple steps further by making the best ever garlic butter to dress crab ever.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Vietnamese

Diet Gluten Free

Keyword kind of fancy, special occasion

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 10

Servings

Calories 414kcal

Author Agile Test Kitchen

Equipment

1 saucepan for making the garlic butter
1 baking sheet or dish to roast the crab
2 crab crackers to crack the crab shells (optional)
2 bibs to protect your shirt while eating (optional)

Ingredients

1 ea cooked Dungeness crab (about 1-3 lbs), see Note 1
8 Tb butter or non-hydrogenated margarine like Earth Balance
1 teaspoon garlic minced
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon fish sauce or salt if you don't have fish sauce
½ teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Oven prep. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Have a rack set in the middle part of the oven.
Prep the crab. The crab legs should be separated from the body and cracked in a couple spots with a crab cracker or mallet. The crab body should be cleaned of guts and gills. Spread the crab legs and body onto a baking sheet. Save the carapace for garnish.
Make fish sauce butter. Melt the butter, garlic, and sugar together over medium heat in a small saucepan or skillet. Swirl gently to distribute the garlic and sugar. Once the garlic sizzles and sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat. Let the garlic and milk solids sink to the bottom. (About 5 minutes).
Optional: At this point, you can gently pour off the liquid butter to another container, while leaving the milk solids and minced garlic behind. This essentially makes clarified butter that is less subject to burn in the oven and is more of the restaurant-y technique. (I do this step depending on my mood - do I feel rustic or restaurant-y?)
Pour sauce over crab. Mix in the fish sauce and black pepper to the butter sauce. Drizzle over the crab parts on the baking sheet. Usually, some juice from the crab will be drawn out during cooking and add to the volume of the butter sauce.
Cook. Pop the baking sheet into the oven. Roast for 10-15 minutes, until the crab is heated through.
Plate. Remove from the oven. Use tongs or quick hands to arrange the legs and body into the shape of a live crab. Drizzle over the remaining butter sauce from the baking sheet. Put the carapace on top for garnish.
Serve with lemon wedges, crab crackers, bibs to wear if needed.

Notes

To boil your own fresh Dungeness crab,
This may seem like a lot of butter, and it is. but you don't end up using it all, but it helps if there is a little extra, so you can easily dip each piece of crabmeat.
1 crab can be shared between 2 people.

Nutrition