Mga Kwento sa Kusina… Stories from the Kitchen.

I do not even know if this is the real name of the dish. I have been calling it Soppa De Congrejo con Patola for years. Crab soup with patola. That is what it is, so that is what I call it.

Immersion

Sixth year in the kitchen and I get hired as a kitchen manager for a company running food chains. All franchised. And part of that job was immersion. They send you out to the stores and you learn the whole thing from the inside. Production. Service. Management. Even the admin. Not from a desk, from the floor.

One of the places they sent me to, was in the old Harrison Plaza. There the head chef cooked this soup once a week for staff meals. And he called it Soppa de Congrejo. Crab, misua, patola. Nothing fancy. Just something to feed the hungry crew between shifts. It could have been the flavour, or the simplicity of the dish, or just that family like bond eating together. Whatever it is, I liked it. Liked it enough that it followed me out of that posting and stayed with me all these years.

My Version

Today I saw some blue swimmer crabs in the market. At first I thought I would cook it with coconut. But then I saw patola (loofah gourd) so I knew what lunch was actually going to be. But there was no misua at the market. None. So I went looking for the next best thing and came back with thin udon.

And it worked. More bite than misua, holds itself together in the broth, and the crab and the patola still carried it exactly the way I remembered. So that is it. This is my version now.

Soppa De Congrejo con Patola

5 whole blue swimmer crabs, cleaned and cut in half
1 onion, sliced
1 knob ginger, sliced
6 clvs garlic, ponded and chopped
1 whole red chili, left whole for gentle heat
240 ml lemonade
Water, enough to cover
1 patola, peeled and sliced into rounds
Thin udon noodles, or misua if you can find it
Patis, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
Steamed rice, to serve

Step 1 — Sauté the onion, ginger, and garlic until soft and fragrant.

Step 2 — In with the crab. Toss it through the aromatics and let it pick up all that flavour.

Step 3 — Lemonade first. Then top up with water to cover. Drop in the whole chili, bring it to a simmer, and let the crab do the work on that broth.

Step 4 — Season with patis, salt and pepper. Taste it. Adjust it. That broth is the whole dish.

Step 5 — Patola and noodles go in together. Simmer until the patola is tender and the noodles are through. Do not walk away here.

Step 6 — Serve it hot, with steamed rice on the side. Soup and rice. Always.

Chef’s Tip

Keep that chili whole. Chop it and you have turned the whole pot spicy, and that is not what this soup is about. You want the warmth sitting underneath, not sitting on top of the crab. And do not put the noodles in early thinking you are saving time. Mushy noodles in a good broth is a waste of good crab.

Happy Cooking and always remember to cook with your Heart…