Chinese cuisine doesn't lack for expensive delicacies. Dried abalone, bird's nest and shark's fin are standards at Chinese banquets, but sometimes, exquisite foods require more than just the ability to hand over a platinum credit card. The coveted yellow oil crab (wong yau hai) is so rare - it's available for just a few months a year - that money won't guarantee a taste to the most pampered palates.
These crabs aren't as famous as the Shanghainese hairy crabs eaten in winter and also prized for their roe, but they're certainly rarer. Wong yau hai are available only in the hottest months of summer. They're caught in shallow waters when the scorching heat of up to 40 degrees Celsius makes them frail and weak. The extreme heat melts the roe, transforming it into a flood of rich yellow oil that permeates the entire body of the crustacean to the tips of the claws.
The melted yellow roe is the reason the crabs are so sought after by serious foodies. 'Once cooked, the fragrant yellow oil oozes out like ice cream,' says Chui Wai-kwan, proprietor of Fook Lam Moon Restaurant. 'It's creamy and soft in texture and has the yellowness of salted egg yolk.'
The crabs are fussy creatures. In order for the roe-to-liquid transformation to occur, the weather can't be excessively wet, cold or hot, says Lau Wai-leung, Lei Garden's executive chef. He describes the ideal conditions as similar to a Swedish sauna.
The supply of wild yellow oil crabs has dwindled rapidly in recent years due to water pollution and temperature fluctuations. Most yellow oil crabs are farmed, which has lengthened the period they're available.
'In the old days when people were eating mostly wild crab, the season would only last two to three weeks,' says Chui. 'But thanks to improvements in technology, yellow oil crab can now be eaten from June to August.'
Connoisseurs say the measure of a superior yellow oil crab lies in the golden-yellow glow in the claws and limbs. The yellower the better because it's more likely a wild crab, which are considered sweeter than the farmed variety.
