Spicy Crab Soup with Orange

made with North Sea Crab

Course Appetizer, Lunch, Soup

Cuisine Dutch

Keyword Seafood

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 45

Servings 4 servings

1 Potato
1 Carrot
100 gram Shallots
2 tbsp Butter
2 tbsp Flour
1 tbsp Tomato puree
1 tbsp Salt
4 tbsp Apple Jenever also possible; Cognac, Eau-de-vie or 3 el apple liquor (just skip the sugar in that case)
300 ml White wine
1 litre Water
1 tbsp Sugar
1 Orange
1 tsp Dried Chili Flakes
600 gram North Sea Crab crabs with a softer shell or beach crabs; if not available; use crab claws.
Lemon Juice to taste

Cut the potato in cubes, carrot in slices and shallot in rings.
[If you're using alive crab; make sure you keep them very cold (by keeping them in a very cold refrigerator or on ice)]. Make about 100 ml of sunflower oil very hot, and add the crabs. Keep stirring until all crabs have a red color. Then add the potato, carrot, shallot, tomato puree and flour and bake for about 5 minutes.
[If you work with Crab Claws] Heat the butter on medium heat and bake the potato, carrot and shallot for 5 minutes. Add the tomato puree and flour and stir well. Make sure your extractor hood is off at this point.
When it starts sticking on the bottom of the pan, add the jenever and stir till wel mixed. Then add the wine, water, laurel, peppercorns, salt, crab claws, chili, zest of ½ an orange and juice of ½ an orange. Bring to the boil and let it cook for about 45 minutes.
[If you work with Crab Claws] Take out the claws and break them in smaller pieces. If you have a strong blender; you can blend the soup with the crab claws. However if that's not the case; break the claws in pieces above a bowl or in a mortar. Make sure you catch all the liquids coming out of the claws. Add this liquid and some of the crab meat to the soup and then blend the soup normally. The soup doesn't need to be perfectly smooth, since it will need to be sieved anyway.
Sieve the soup & serve with chopped chives and some lemon juice if you like!