黄油蟹 Yellow Oil Crab

'Yellow Oil Crab' is one of those rare delicacies that is created by a freak event of nature. When the female crab are fat and ready to mate they sun on the beaches on the mouth of the Pearl River near Hong Kong. If they meet extremely hot and sunny days, the fat in the liver breaks up and seeps into every bit of the body. Yellow fat then shows in the meat and under the shells turning everything inside yellow. If the summer is not hot enough or if the heatwave does not arrive at the right time, there is no YOC at all. And even when the weather is right, only few come to the market.


I was in Hong Kong this August and was fortunately enough to have this true wild Yellow Oil Crab at Lei Yue Mun. The fat under the shell is creamy and rich, and the oil penetrated well into every bit of the crab. I was sucking flavour out of the tips well after I finished with the meat. The price is scary but definitely worth it.

There are a lot of YOC in Hong Kong these days but most of them are female crabs 'baked' under hot lamps. They don't achieve this level of penetration and the fat does not break down as well. Not really the same thing.