Angela Hartnett on Crab Great British Food Revival

-Some of the best British produce is under threat.

-At the mercy of foreign invaders.

-And food fashion.

-Produce around for centuries.

-Could die out within a generation.

-So together we're on a mission.

-To save it!

We'll tell you how to find it, grow it and cook it.

-And put sensational British produce.

-Back on the food map.

So we live on an island, we're surrounded by sea

and in that sea is the most amazing British crab, but we hardly eat it.

I want to find out why the British public aren't eating enough of it.

'I'm Angela Hartnett and I'm passionate about reviving the fortune of the British crab.

'It's baffling why we export over half our yearly catch of this creature.'

Don't you just want to eat the lovely white and brown meat?

'I'll reveal some of the best places to catch crab.' Ahoy there!

'Meeting people who love crab as much as me.'

You don't have sex just the one way, so come on, be adventurous!

'Finding out how to make it supermarket-friendly.'

-By pasteurising it, how long does that increase its shelf life for?

-From four days to 14.

'And the bit I really love - cooking. I'll show you three deliciously simple suppers,

'including an amazing spider crab gratin.'

Fantastic at a dinner party. Everyone loves the crab. They think you're the cleverest chef around.

My first memories of crab were the little jars of crab paste that you used to have in sandwiches.

It was only when I started becoming a chef later in life

that I realised how the original... and most amazing flavour you get from these crabs.

And recently, my most amazing taste sensation was down in Cornwall

where we had fantastic crab baguettes with lovely white wine.

On the beach, just eating that, you can't ask better.

'Shockingly, only about 5% of us have even tried crab,

'so exactly what have we got against this tasty crustacean?'

-Can I ask you something? Do you eat crab?

-No.

-And you, madam?

-No, thank you.

-You don't like it?

-No.

-You haven't tried it.

-No, thank you.

-Go on, try a bit.

-Is it live?

-Yes, it is live. Pick it up.

-I don't want to.

-You don't want to. Why not?

-Because it looks awful.

But you're eating the meat.

-It looks like a coconut. Is it alive?

-Yes. That is a fantastic spider crab.

-They're like giant spiders.

-I'm a bit arachnophobic. They freak me out.

-If you got a crab on your plate, would that freak you out?

-Yeah, that would freak me out.

'So most of us don't like the look of it, but if I'm going to get to the bottom

'of why we aren't eating enough crab, there is only one place to go

'and that's London's seafood market in the heart of the east end.'

We're here at Billingsgate, which is always good fun, about six in the morning.

If anyone knows why we're not eating crabs and what we need to do to make sure we eat crabs, it's these guys.

'Here taste definitely comes before looks, but appearance isn't the only problem crab has,

'as it's traditionally sold live to guarantee freshness.'

-I don't want to see them moving about.

-They're not so bad.

-Many people are like that, because it moves.

-That puts people off.

'And even the cooked ones need to be picked and dressed, something our busy schedules don't allow for.'

-People are lazy now. Everything is for convenience.

-No-one wants to do the work.

'So we're missing out on one of the healthiest, tastiest, most abundant meats our shores have to offer.'

We're like the largest producers of crab in Europe, so why aren't the British eating it?

The Europeans, generally, are bigger consumers of shellfish than we are.

That's just bonkers. It doesn't make sense.

If you go back 20, 30 years, there used to be a shellfish stall outside most pubs.

-So you could have crab every day?

-Crabs, cockles, eels.

-That's the tragedy. We export to Spain, France and Italy and we're not eating it here.

-No.

But why aren't the British cooking more of the fresh ones? Stick it in a little pot of water - easy.

-The British people are not fish-eating people.

-How do I get the British public eating more crab?

-What are your suggestions?

-Just say to 'em, "Come on, guys.

"You don't have sex just the one way, so come on, be adventurous!"

-I'm going to tell them to come to you.

-Come and see us. Crab's terrific. It's lovely.

'So where did it go wrong and how do we rekindle our love affair with this mouth-watering meat?'

We don't eat enough crab now, but years ago, we were eating tons of the stuff. What happened?

For example, in 1861, at the old Billingsgate Market, in one year,

600,000 live crabs were actually sold.

600,000? That's an incredible amount.

-It's nothing like that nowadays.

-What's changed our eating habits?

It's just getting hold of the crab.

In the old days, people would shop more at their fishmonger or a local market where products were available.

Nowadays, most of us, about 85% of us get our shellfish in the supermarkets.

-How many times have you seen crab in a supermarket?

-What about health benefits?

Crab are good for us because of high levels of long-chain omega-3 acids.

How much crab are we eating in this country?

Despite the fact that we land nearly 25,000 tonnes and it's the sixth most important fishery in the UK

and the UK fleet lands over half of the entire European catch, it doesn't even make the top ten.

So on holiday, we're eating crab, that we could be buying up the road,

-for twice the price? Something's wrong.

-Absolutely right.

'The message is clear. Everyone is in love with British crab, except us Brits.

'So we need to stop being afraid and start eating more of it.'

I'm going to cook a really simple crab dish. It's easy to make. You've all eaten it at restaurants.

When you buy your crab, you want to make sure it's at its freshest,

which means buying it live and dispatching it yourself.

As an alternative, you can buy whole cooked crab from your fishmonger and pick the meat at home instead.

Start by removing the shell from your cooked crab.

Take it from the back and just literally push up, so you start to pull away the crab from its shell.

OK, remove its claws, which is where you'll find all the white meat.

And then all the little claws here.

Gently just pull them away like so from the body of the crab.

Here you have what they call dead man's fingers.

These are the crab gills and they are grey and shrivelled. You shouldn't eat them.

Inside this part of the crab, you've got all the lovely brown crab meat.

But it's the sweet white meat I'm after for my crab cakes and most of that is found in the claws.

Just slightly crack them

and again, a little bash there.

Think of someone you hate at the moment when you're banging it.

Then scrape out all that flaky white meat, making sure you get into all those hard-to-reach places.

Just use the back of the spoon and pull away all the crab meat like so.

But if all this looks too much like hard work,

you can ask your fishmonger to do it for you. But I say give it a go.

Some people get very nervous about it, but there's nothing better than being at the beach

and really tucking into crab like this. Loads of lemon juice, touch of mayonnaise and you're away.

OK, a final little one here.

Don't throw any shells away.

You can make them into soup or into bisque. They're great to make a little crab sauce.

Once you've picked all the meat, check for any sneaky bits of shell.

Tip a little bit out each time, then with your fingers, just literally go through it like that.

And that's it. It's dead easy really.

So is turning it into crab cakes.

All you need to do is blitz up some spring onion, ginger and chilli.

They're all going to be used to spice it up.

And add it to the crab meat.

It's the most simple dish ever. Just mix that all together like that.

And throw in some fresh coriander.

If you don't want to use coriander, basil is another nice herb that you can add to it as well.

Then it's in with some whisked egg, some salt and pepper...

..and breadcrumbs to help bind it, and you're ready to roll.

Classic American dish. When we had a restaurant in the States, everyone wanted to eat crab cakes.

They love them. And we should make them such a thing on our menus over here.

Then we're just going to pat them down.

Just like so, about half an inch thick.

The smell is absolutely delicious. How simple is that?

All they need now is a crisp breadcrumb coating, held in place with a bit of flour and egg.

The first thing you need to do is dip the crab into the flour or do them two at a time.

Great little job to do with kids.

They like dipping their hands in loads of nonsense and it's perfect to do that.

You can even at this stage freeze them.

When you bring them out to cook them, make sure they've defrosted overnight in a fridge.

Then simply fry them in olive oil.

You just want to lightly move them around,

just so they get a nice, even golden brown colour.

And when they're gorgeous and crispy on both sides,

get them on to a tray and into the oven to warm through.

Oh, God, they look amazing, absolutely delicious. They've been in for about ten minutes.

Put your spoon in the end. Go straight into the centre and bring it to your lips.

It feels hot, so you know they're thoroughly cooked through.

All these need now is a spoonful of sweet chilli jam, a fresh green salad and a slice of lemon.

A little bit of olive oil on your salad, just a drizzle,

and we're going to put two of the crab cakes straight on like so.

And a squeeze of lemon as well.

So all finished.

They look absolutely amazing. I'm sure they taste amazing.

I'll just tuck in here.

You can see straight away that fantastic crab there. Beautiful.

Hmm!

Why are we getting rid of this stuff abroad?

It tastes amazing, so simple to do.

It's full of the flavours of the sea. They're delicious, even if I say so myself.

'No attempt to revive the British crab would be worth its salt without a trip to the seaside,

'so I'm off to Swanage on the Dorset coast

'to find out more from a fisherman whose family have been catching crab for five generations.'

I'm just waiting for Jeff who you can see just coming in now.

I've eaten nothing this morning because when I go on a boat, I normally throw up.

'Jeff Lander catches brown crab for the British market and spider crab which he exports abroad.

'He is one of only a few full-time crab fishermen left in the area.'

-Hi, Jeff.

-Hi, Angela.

-I feel like the Queen!

-There's your life-jacket.

'It's a dying trade and one we need to support, seasickness or not.'

Ahoy there, sailor!

'Jeff uses a baited potting system

'and, thanks to checking and re-baiting his 500 pots six days a week,

'has a fine pair of sea legs unlike me.'

I'm gripping Jeff with all my might because I feel we're like this.

Explain what's going on, Jeff.

We're going to lift the pots up. We're going to empty the crabs out.

And you've got all these pots attached to one another?

-They're all attached.

-How many do you have in one line?

-In one line, there's 30.

-OK.

-You've got to be careful.

-That one's going back in.

-That one's small anyway, so he can go back.

'Jeff pulls in 100 to 150 kilos of brown crab a day during peak season

'and like all good fishermen, throws the small ones back to protect future stocks and his livelihood.'

-That's a good crab.

-Those ones are all too small.

-That one's all right.

-This poor little bubba, back in.

'And size isn't the only factor as crab shed their shells as part of their growth cycle.'

-When you say it's a soft shell, it feels soft?

-It's a new-shell crab.

-It's shed its old shell and it's going to regrow?

-Yeah.

-It's regrown and now it takes time to harden.

-Right, OK. So it's not at peak condition.

-This is a better crab.

-That looks great. That's nice and hard.

-Can we take that home to eat?

-You can take that one home to eat.

Perfect.

'Now I've got my tea sorted, I'm hoping we can head back to shore.

'But the crabs keep on coming and not just the brown crabs.'

-That's a female spider crab.

-Wow! How many of those do you get?

-At this time of the year, not that many.

It's a summertime thing - May through to August, September.

'And we eat even less spider crab than brown crab,

'despite them being common to our shores. It's sickening really.'

-Are you all right, Angela?

-Yeah, yeah. It'd just be good to turn around now.

We've done that. Been crab-fishing. Tick that box. Don't need to do that again, thanks very much.

I don't want to vomit on the crabs!

'Back on dry land and a little less green around the gills, I'm off to meet a man

'who cooks up a staggering 90 crabs a day in the summer.'

You'd like these to eat now?

'Mick Storer has been dishing up crab for 28 years

'and will show me a few trade secrets with these cooked crabs.'

-Take the legs off first?

-No.

I turns him round, puts my thumbs on the back, pushes it and he opens up. Tickety-boo!

Oh, I've got no strength!

You can do it any way you like.

Yeah, I'm really useless. Then bring that all out like that. Wow!

'Mick knows everything about the gills or dead man's fingers.'

-Do they think they're poisonous?

-Yeah. It depends on where they've been feeding.

-So they could be.

-Depending on the clarity of their water.

'And has prepping crab down to a fine art.'

And then a simple trick.

If you put your finger close to all the legs and pull at once...

Oh, I did that one perfectly.

-All the meat comes out in one go.

-Oh, yeah.

-You haven't got to pick it out.

-Very good.

-You've just saved yourself a few minutes.

I love your top tips there, Mick.

Then we're going to dress the crab in the classic English way. You've got all the brown meat there.

All the brown meat on the bottom. Just pop the white meat on top.

-You just leave it all there because you've taken all the rubbish bits out.

-This is the way you eat it.

-Fantastic.

-'It's a favourite with his customers too. At under £5 a head, it's cheaper than fish and chips.'

So that's my lunch. You're an officer and a gentleman. Beautiful.

-You can't get better than that - beautiful British crab.

-Bottle of wine, tickety-boo!

-Beautiful.

It's been a fantastic experience from fishing the crabs to cooking them and now eating them.

And the flavour is second to none without having to do too much to it, except prep it.

One of the best things about today that I've learnt is the abundance of it.

I've always naively thought that we didn't have loads of crab.

We have loads of crab, but we're exporting them.

We have to make sure it's coming straight to us, not going abroad.

'And there's plenty more we can do with it.

Just to show how versatile crab is,

I'm going to do the most amazing crab linguine.

To start off, season our water with rock salt. Make sure it's nice and boiling.

Just straight away, add your linguine in.

I prefer dried to fresh linguine and cook it for seven to eight minutes to retain its al dente bite,

which is more than enough time to make my sauce.

Just to start off, we're going to put quite a bit of olive oil in the bottom of the pan.

And add some full-on flavours,

starting with garlic, about a clove.

Cut your knife through it very lightly.

And for heat, some de-seeded red chilli.

Chilli is fantastic with crab.

It really enhances the flavour without overkill and making it too spicy.

So that straight in the pan like so.

And I want some fragrant herbs.

Some fresh flat-leaf parsley and some lovely, fresh basil.

All these lovely, fresh herbs are great with crab.

They really enhance the flavour, basil especially.

You've got the sweetness of the basil and of the crab.

We got this fantastic crab here from Jeff down in Swanage, down in Dorset.

He's one of the few left in this country, so we need to start getting these guys back out on the sea.

That means eating more delicious British crab meat which is hardly a hardship.

We'll deglaze it with a bit of white wine.

Put a little bit of salt in with our crab here, a little bit of black pepper.

Add our spring onions in.

Along with a little bit of lemon zest just to give it that freshness.

And that's it. It's dead simple.

This dish works as a main course for two people or for four as a starter.

When we put it on at the restaurant, people absolutely go mad for crab linguine.

So our pasta's done. I'm going to tip it out.

Just give it a really good shake.

Straight into there.

Add our parsley, add our basil.

Then really give it a great, nice toss there,

so you get all the crab going right through the pasta.

And there you have it, a deliciously straightforward crab supper.

Just before you eat it, do a little squeeze of lemon juice. It brings out that amazing crab flavour.

So you couldn't ask for anything better.

You've got linguine with fresh basil and parsley, but most importantly, the most amazing Dorset crab.

Hmm!

That really is good.

'One reason we're not eating enough crab is because it's hard to come by in supermarkets.

'So I've come to Hampton in Middlesex to visit a company

'who are trying to change things.'

If you don't like the idea of cooking fresh, live crab, I've got the perfect solution right now.

'The answer is pasteurised crab meat,

'but not the frozen, "steamed within an inch of its life" stuff of yesteryear. This is the real deal.'

-The fresh crab comes from Cornwall. It's all picked by hand, then we pack it into these small pots.

-Yeah.

-What's that? 100 grams?

-Yeah. That's done so we get a portion for two people.

'It's then vac-packed and steamed or pasteurised at a temperature that ensures it is safe to eat.'

By pasteurising it, how long does that it increase its shelf life for?

-From four days as a fresh product to 14.

-Wow!

-That's a long time.

-It makes it a lot more plausible for supermarkets to be able to sell it on that basis.

'So how does it compare to fresh crab meat?'

The only reason I think that is the fresh crab and that's pasteurised is because of colour.

-Taste-wise, there's absolutely no difference.

-You're right.

I've tasted pasteurised before which is watery and insipid, but that's really delicious.

-Thank you.

-I'll take them with me!

So that's a great way of getting crab into the supermarkets and out to the mass consumer.

The taste was absolutely amazing.

But if we really want to see a culture that's been embracing eating crab for years,

I've got to see my Spanish friends.

'Sadly, not in Spain, but in London's Soho instead.'

The Spanish love seafood. They eat more seafood

than anyone apart from the Japanese,

so crab is really important to them.

And also I think one could argue

that the Spanish are much more likely to get their hands dirty when it comes to eating.

You have to get involved in extracting all those sweet bits of meat.

'A lesson we can learn from head chef Nieves who brought her passion for crab from the Basque Country.'

Why do the Spanish eat more crab than the Brits?

You go to Spain and you have big crabs on the table. You start picking it.

You drink wine and cava with it.

It's really common for us to have crab and seafood,

-especially at Christmas.

-Why is that?

-Why has Spain embraced crab more than the Brits when we've got it all round the island?

-I don't know.

-It tastes delicious.

-Yeah.

-It's not expensive and it's special. You know, it's something you...

I think it's a cultural thing that the Spanish, like the Italians and French, eat together.

-It's a family thing, a sharing thing.

-Maybe, yeah.

'This isn't the only Spanish tradition to involve crab.

'Spider crab stew is a speciality too.'

-So this is the fantastic spider crab?

-Yeah, that's a spider crab.

-So normally what you do, you put all the mix in here.

-Yeah.

-Then you put this on top like that and you'd serve that whole.

-Yes.

-That's what you do traditionally in the Basque Country in Spain?

-Yes.

'The Spanish use crab in just about everything from simple tapas to elegant souffles like this one.'

I'm going in for the kill.

Oh, my God, it's so good.

-If people ate crab like this, they would eat crab all the time.

-Yeah.

-That is so nice.

-Thank you.

'That's exactly what we need to do if we're going to revive it.'

We've got to embrace that Spanish and Italian culture that sits down and eats it together as a family.

It's an amazing product and we shouldn't give it away.

We should eat it every week on the British dining table.

For dressing it, we're going to look at what bits you don't want.

'If you're still not sure about preparing crab from scratch,

'many courses around the UK will take you through it step by step, like this one at Billingsgate.'

People who come on these courses are nervous about handling it.

They're worried about food poisoning.

If you're faced with a whole crab, they think, "What do I do with that?" Demystifying it is the key thing.

This is the main body. A lot of people chuck that out, but there are lots of cavities in the shell here.

When you first look at a crab, it's daunting.

But when someone explains to you how to do it, it's fairly easy.

I'd be happy to go to a fishmonger's now, buy a crab and dress it myself.

I was always quite concerned as to what parts I should keep and what parts I shouldn't,

so that's a bit clearer now.

A course like this is absolutely fantastic.

Seeing how to do it is an awful lot easier than reading about it.

'So come on, folks. It's time to start cooking and eating more crab.

'And I've saved my best dish till last.'

For my third dish, I'll use the spider crab.

I'll take out all the meat, make it into a lovely, spicy, tomato ragout,

put it back in and serve it in the crab.

This crab is cooked and ready to pick. We prepare the spider crab the same way as you would a brown crab.

I'm going to start the normal way by basically removing the base of the shell,

so they separate like so.

Nieves uses spider crab in her cuisine all the time. It's a real favourite amongst the Spanish.

We forget we have it in our country.

We'll eat it in Spain and France, but in fact all they're doing is importing it from the UK.

So we've got to make sure we start using it here.

Again take off all the dead man's fingers, as they say.

The great thing about this is the presentation. I love it and so will your friends at your dinner table.

I'm going to keep the shell.

We're just going to rinse that because we're going to use that to serve our spider crab.

Then you can see you've got really juicy, quite wet crab meat.

And it has that really lovely, salty sort of flavour of the sea.

Time to get on with the ragout itself which starts with celery, leeks and shallots.

Straight into a pan with olive oil and we're just going to lightly saute that down.

A little bit of pepper and salt just to sort of start it off.

And then some finely chopped ginger.

And the ginger really does give it that sort of oriental, spicy flavour to it which is fantastic.

Then it's in with some sweet cherry tomatoes and a good squeeze of tomato puree.

And that will help to keep the sauce nice and thick.

For acidity, a glug of white wine vinegar.

Followed by the zest and juice of a lemon.

If you want, you can really spice this up.

You can add a little bit of honey to it if you wanted to really have that sweet and sour effect.

A bit of maple syrup as well.

I'm going to keep it more on the salty side than the sweet side.

And once the tomatoes have broken down, we add our juicy spider crab.

As soon as that goes in, we deglaze it with a bit of brandy.

Brandy is the perfect accompaniment to crab meat or any sort of light fish sauces.

It just gives it a little boost.

And our final little ingredient, just to give it a little bit of a kick, is Tabasco.

To taste, obviously. Then off the heat, stir through some sweet basil, my herb of choice with crab.

So straight into the shell like so.

All I've done is just wash it out and make sure it's clean and dry.

And once it's all in there,

scatter some grated Gruyere, Parmesan and breadcrumbs.

So the last little bit of breadcrumbs and cheese on there

and then in the oven.

After three or four minutes under a hot grill, it will be gorgeous, bubbling, golden brown.

So there you have it - a beautiful, gratinated spider crab.

This is such a meal in itself with the spider crab, the tomato, the leek,

onions, celery. Really delicious!

That's the real shame of it all. We've got the most amazing product

from brown crabs down in Cornwall and Dorset, spider crabs and the Norfolk Cromer crabs.

We should be using this stuff daily in our cooking, instead of exporting it.

I hope you'll with me revive the Great British crab.

Really make an effort and do these simple recipes I showed you and use crab every week.

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