Brined Raw Crab with Red Roe 红膏炝蟹
Brined Raw Crab with Red Roe is featured among the local specialties of Zhejiang.
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Brined Raw Crab with Red Roe (红膏炝蟹) is a cold dish associated with Ningbo (宁波), made with roe-rich swimming crabs. A China Ningbo News (中国宁波网) report records the local saying that a banquet is incomplete without this dish and interviews traders at the city’s seafood market.
A market trader’s preparation
Trader Zhou Huojun (周火军) describes immersing fresh swimming crabs in sea-salt brine, with the curing time adjusted for temperature. He also describes chilling the cured crabs in a freezer before taking them out, cutting them into pieces and arranging them on a plate.
Different amounts of red roe
The market account distinguishes crabs with a little red roe, called yidian hong (一点红), and more generously filled specimens, called honggao (红膏). It calls its highest grade feiji xie (飞机蟹).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-30. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.