Cooking, in my opinion, is about as close to magic as a person can ever experience; the resulting flavor, if carefully crafted, usually comes out far better than any single ingredient can ever produce on their own. I’m very bad at following recipes. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever followed a cooking recipe from beginning to end, and yet somehow the flavors “happen” and poof a dish is born!

Today I had the challenge of salvaging month old frozen blue crab that my mom had dug up from the depth of her infinite freezer. They were tiny, shell off, and already split in half. “Put it in some soup,” my mom said to me as I stared at the unappetizing block of frozen crustacean legs and claws. I knew soup was a bad idea; don’t need to make them more bland by boiling them in liquid. Then it hit me. In Cambodia, I once had these glorious griddle cooked prawns tossed in a sweet, tangy, aromatic, ginger garlic sauce. Okay, I have tiny frozen crab, not plump fresh prawns. Buuuuut, maybe I can “mimic” the flavors. I mean, really, we are freezer salvaging here; as long as it’s edible, it’ll be fine.

I found a flat pan, added a few tablespoons of vegetable oil and heated it up on high. I patted dry the thawed crab halves, dumped them into the oiled pan, and started to toss in ingredients: a handful of finely minced garlic and ginger, several generous splashes of Vietnamese fish sauce, and a few spoonfuls of sugar. No need for salt because of the fish sauce. I tasted the sauce as I built in the flavors and stopped adding ingredients once it tasted balanced. Using tongs, I flipped the crab halves in the aromatic mixture a few times before putting a cover on to steam. No water needed since the frozen crab halves came with a lot of water already. Lastly, I chopped up some green onions as garnish.

I only had to cook for 15 to 20min on high heat (I have a gas burner, might need longer on electric stoves). The beautiful cooking magic infused all of the flavors into the crab as they turned crimson under the intense heat. When dishing, I made sure all of the delicious saucy pan drippings were drizzled over the top of the crab along with a handful of chopped green onions. And so with that, a no recipe freezer salvage dish was born out of pure magic!