Soft Shell Crab #3
Southeast Asian and Mexican flavors unite for this summertime dish at Ensenada.
Photo: Alexander Zeren
According to Chef Luis Herrera, summer is “the happiest time in New York.” That’s because it's the beginning of soft shell crab season. Like chefs all across the city, Herrera celebrates the arrival of the warm weather with his own clever spin on the crowd-pleasing crustacean. At Ensenada, his Williamsburg restaurant, the crab provides an annual opportunity to highlight the best ingredients of the season.
“Each summer, I have a different set for the soft shell crab,” he says. “The first summer, it was grilled and had a cantaloupe-sungold tomato salad. The following year, it had a green mole, and I did this crazy white bean and fried sweet plantain salad.” This past year, the dish took a turn towards Southeast Asia without letting go of Herrera’s Mexican influence.
Herrera wanted to “balance out the crab with tangy and spicy [flavors], and highlight the umami with more umami.” Since there is always a mole on the menu at Ensenada, Herrera saw the sauce as a perfect starting point, specifically a Oaxacan-inspired mole amarillo. He blends traditional chilhuacle amarillo, ají amarillo, and guajillo chiles with ginger, garlic, lemongrass, onions, tomatillos, tomatoes, and coconut milk, as well as turmeric and herbs like epazote and hoja santa. The mole is then thickened with sesame seeds and a slurry of corn masa before it is refried. It’s a “simple mole,” he says, and different from “the heaviness you get from a mole negro, rojo, or poblano. It works [better] for summer.”
The soft shell crab itself is dipped in rice flour and fried in the restaurant’s fish taco batter, a mix of potato starch, paprika, cayenne, garlic powder, oregano, black pepper, sparkling water, mezcal, and agave “for color,” says Herrera. Once it’s pulled out of the fryer, the crunchy crab is seasoned with a blend of ground peppers, MSG, citric acid, vinegar powder, and salt.
The fried soft shell crab is served over the mole and then topped with a green mango salad. “I like [the mole] because I think it has a lot of similarities with Thai curry,” says Herrera. “One of my favorite salads in the world is Thai papaya salad, but this year I went with green mango.” The mango salad is supported by pickled ginger, dried baby shrimp, and sungold tomatoes and dressed in a nước mắm. The dish is covered with fresh herbs and comes with a side of tortillas.
“The big inspiration was pairing [the soft shell crab] with what was seasonal in New York at the moment,” says Herrera, but “I think what is more interesting to me is that even though we are a ‘Mexican restaurant,’ the only Mexican thing is the mole. I'm playing with flavors; things I just like eating. That’s the freedom you have in New York.”
