Weekend Cooking: Crab Steamed in Orange

Pick a large, yellow and ripe orange. Remove the top, the flesh but leave a little of the juice. Fill the empty orange with mitten crab roe and meat. After covering the orange, steam it in the cooking pot with cooking rice wine and vinegar. Serve the cooked crab with vinegar and salts to enhance its flavour.

From "Shanjia qinggong" by Lin Hong, a Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) poet.

"Shanjia qinggong" (lit. Simple diet from a mountain living hermit) is the most complete recipe books circulated from the twelfth century China.