These amazingly fresh, clean and meaty alimango traveled from Culion, Palawan by plane. A crew member’s family was arriving from Culion and they generously offered to bring some stuff with them… I asked for two kilos of raw, sun-dried cashew nuts (not roasted, salted or sugared) and some crab if they hadn’t already filled up their baggage allowance. They arrived with this spectacular bounty, a small box filled with roughly ten kilos of alimango! Wow!
Packed just hours before and covered with dahon ng bakhaw or mangrove tree leaves, the crabs were incredibly feisty once freed from their tight quarters…
…and with massive and powerful claws just barely tied with a bit of synthetic straw, you had to be really careful while extracting them from the box.
Notice how incredibly CLEAN the shells of these live crabs are. That’s what they look like when they are caught in the wild, amongst the mangroves… these aren’t raised in crowded muddy fishponds and fed all kinds of questionable grub…
It was roughly 1pm in the afternoon when these were delivered to our home, and I just knew we had to have them for dinner. But there’s no way we could consume ten kilos worth, so we picked five enormous crabs weighing roughly a kilo each, and shared the remaining crabs with crew and families.
Despite being “tied-up”, the critters still managed to clamber up over the edge of the plastic wash basin and scampered across the tiled kitchen floor. These guys had huge eyes, and frankly, if we didn’t eat them for dinner, I would have feared for my toes if they had escaped and hid in some dark corner of the house, waiting to get revenge. :(
They can crawl surprisingly fast.
This crab weighed in at nearly a kilo in weight.
Waiting for the inevitable…
21 Responses
It’s a boy!
So how did you cook them MM? They look really good and so fresh!
Wowwee!! they look like prehistoric beauties. kinamot gid!! does the teen like alimango too??
Wow! These alimangos looks really fresh. Just looking at them makes me think of Singapore chili crab :)
Wondering how you presented the crabs for dinner. I’m happy with steamed ones, and of course with ‘burong hipon’ and maybe, basic tortang talong. Basmati for the rice, since the ‘burong hipon’ is rice in itself …
Crab on picture #4 looks really angry.
weeeh, yummy with gata!!!
Wow! Can’t wait to see what amazing dish would come out from those crabs. Would have been very happy have my own fill of MIGHTY MIGHTY MIGHTY MUD CRABS.
Oh! those big crabs would make nice pad pong (curry crab) in my favorite roadside eatery in Northern Thailand.
wow, huge! can’t wait to see what you did with them.
I don’t recall mud crabs to have red beady eyes, or maybe these ones are just evil.:)
A big mud crab can crush the top of a beer bottle, so your toes would not stand a chance :). But I think they have the tastiest meat of all the crabs.
Could it just be that the camera’s red-eye flash mode was not enabled? The ones not directly facing the camera are not red-eyed. On the other hand, they could have been flown on a red-eye flight.
When it’s so fresh like this I prefer to just cook the crabs in seasoned water and have a variety of dipping sauces to compliment the sweetness of the crab. This way I can have a variety of tastes! Oh and a big pot of hot rice of course.
Hello MM,
We call that kind of alimango as “banhawon”. You can actually stock it longer (1 to 2 weeks) alive.
you can use palanggana or balde or ice box. put water (maybe 1/2 inch high) and add asin (parang timplang tinola lang :-)). and not too salty. dapat alimango is not submerged or elsethey’ll drown. use a big balde or leave enough space for alimango to move around.
Change the water solution every other day or when water is already dirty.
Enjoy.
I don’t think I’ve had a crab that big before!
I could imagine just boiling it in some seasoned water as Susan described, then have some butter sauce with a splash of lemon for dipping. Yum!
And some cold beer of course! Sarap!
Looks so fresh!…..wish I was invited for dinner he!he!he!
wow!!! i love it steamed and sahog sa laswang gulay or labong…. simply the best!!!
For fresh crab, I love it naked and just steamed. The sweet meat is enough yumminess. My ex was a licensed crab fisherman here and I used to cook/steam loads of them when he came with the harvest. Wrap them well and freeze them. Our dungeness crabs are delicious and huge. One is enough for me. But I never tire of it. I cooked them with fermented beans, or with lots of ginger and some coconut milk and curry. Love, love crabs.
@ Josephine, I believe that is a female as the tummy is wider.
Hi Marketman! Ive been an avid follower for 2 years now. Can you give me the contact details of your crab supplier. Thanks!