I bought a jar on a whim several months ago but have yet to open it. An online search for how to use it yielded no useful info. I know it’s salted and I use very little salt, so am looking to use it as a minor component in a dish. Is it something one would add to basic fried rice, or a noodle stir-fry?
If so, a rough idea of amount, relative to dry weight of starch used, would be appreciated.
Could you use it in a Seafood Laksa?
I often use browm crab meat as well as white for crab linguine. I’m assuming a similar flavour profile. I have also used tinned oysters in a tomato sauce for prawns with spaghetti. So I would add it to a tomato sauce for use with a seafood pasta dish. Not sure how strong the paste is but 1 teaspoon per 100g of pasta seems reasonable.
My impression is that this is what it’s generally used for anyway, kind of like a crab pesto. The way you’d use XO sauce, in fact I suppose XO sauce was developed as a kind of fancy version of it. The jar have in the kitchen at present is a Thai crab paste - it’s kind of reddish brown in color, soybean oil based. I use it to flavor soups and sauces more than anything else. I remember another one I used years ago that was lighter in color - maybe it was Chinese or Vietnamese? - but equally salty. I assume some brands are better than others too, but I don’t know much about it obviously.
What I have is also red-brown. The steamy weather has returned, so I won’t be in a rush to open it for the next several days, at least. I know nothing about XO sauce.
I would use it as you would use shrimp paste, which is a component of many Southeast Asian dishes. Here are some ideas:
I would think it would also be very nice in a fried rice or fried noodle dish. If you are extremely salt-sensitive, I’d start with maybe a half teaspoon for two servings and go from there.
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Thanks. It’s really 4, not 5, because for the shrimp toasts you MAKE shrimp “paste” by grinding raw shrimp - no jarred version involved. But it gives me a good springboard for how to use what I have.
Yeah, I thought shrimp toasts were an odd inclusion on that list, since you wouldn’t want to smear a thick layer of the jarred, preserved kind on bread and fry it! I do think a little preserved shrimp paste would be an interesting addition to the fresh shrimp paste you make for shrimp toasts, though - good way to add a little hint of salty funk.
The classic use is with noodles. Despite what wikipedia says most of the XO I’ve ever tasted was nowhere near as hot as sriracha, not even the XO labelled as spicy/hot. Also there is XO without chiles.
First thing you need to do is find a tiny little crab toothbrush…
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