King Crab Juk
As seen on TV
Which Show?
Who made this dish?
Alaskan King Crab Juk with Crispy Aromatics and Sticky Water Chestnuts
The randomizer generated:
Protein: Live king crab;
Produce: Fresh water chestnut;
Equipment: Pressure cooker;
Style: Breakfast and dinner;
Wild card: Sticky
For the breakfast half of the finale, Kevin returned to a Korean comfort food.
Kevin Lee: "So I'm making rice porridge, my breakfast dish. For breakfast, I'm making a king crab juk. Juk is a Korean version of porridge." Kevin Lee: "Making juk is something that takes a lot of love, but I'm hoping I can throw this juk in the pressure cooker where I don't really have to touch it. I'm taking the rice, added to my king crab stock, and we're gonna get it going in the pressure cooker." Disaster struck at the halfway point. Kevin Lee: "I need to get my juk out of my pressure cooker. Oh, no. My rice is burned, and this is bad. This is the whole dish. Without this juk, I have no breakfast." Kevin recovered by pivoting his approach. Kevin Lee: "I'm going to restart the pressure cooker, but this time, I'm not going to add the rice in there. We're just going to pressure cook the crab so we can extract all the stock. Then I'm grabbing the microwave rice, threw it in the microwave to get the rice going. The key here is to really make sure you're stirring constantly."
For the sticky element, he built on his Korean fried chicken playbook. Kevin Lee: "I'm gonna make it like a sticky chestnut garnish. I'm doing the chestnuts a second way, so I'm going to make a little sticky soy garlic glazed chestnuts. That will be a wonderful pairing with the juk. This is also one of the sticky parts of this dish."
Kevin Lee: "I'm going to put a little fish sauce, cured egg yolk on top of the porridge. I'm adding the raw egg to the stew to really get that extra stickiness in this dish."
On plating: Kevin Lee: "For my breakfast, I'm going to lay my juk in this nicely tight bowl. Then we're going to lay the egg yolk in the middle of the juk. And we're going to finish with cilantro stems, green onions, some fried shallots, and some candied chestnuts."
Voiceover: "Judges, it's my honor to present to you two dishes. For breakfast, Alaskan king crab juk with crispy aromatics and sticky water chestnuts. Every good juk begins with a stock. This stock was made from the juices and bodies of the crab, atmospherically extracted in the pressure cooker. You will notice at the top, the honey and soy sauce glazed water chestnuts along with the sticky elements."
Mei Lin: "I really love the presentation of the breakfast. I really appreciate the stickiness that you get from the egg yolk itself."
Brooke Williamson: "If I'm gonna start with breakfast, I love the integrity of the rice, having that individual rice grain texture. I do feel like this was a bit of a missed opportunity to showcase crab. I know that there's little pieces of crab in there. I just kind of want to taste the crab a little bit more."
David Chang: "This first course of the juk, I like this dish. I actually think the crab usage was adequate here because it's showing two different parts. The crab is not just a leg. It's also body meat as well. That's why I like this dish quite a bit."
Combined finale score (breakfast plus dinner): 83. Runner up.
