Bánh Canh Tôm Cua Instant Pot (Vietnamese Tapioca Noodle Soup with Crab and Shrimp)
Author: Katie Le | Katie’s Test Kitchen
Ingredients
Broth for 6-quart IP:
- 2 to 3 lbs of pork spareribs (parboiled on stove top for 5 minutes, rinsed well)
- 20 large shrimps (peeled, deveined) – To save time, I purchased shrimps from Sam’s Club. They come frozen, peeled and deveined. Soak them in water for 15-30 minutes to defrost.
- About 1 lbs of crab claws (washed well and drained) – If you use whole crabs, wash well and halve.
- 10 dried Shiitake mushrooms (soaked in warm sink water for 15 minutes, rinsed multiple times)
- 2 carrots (peeled and cut round about 1/2 inch thick)
- 1 onion
- 1 shallot (sliced)
- 3 tsp of Crab Paste with Bean Oil (please see photo below)
- 1 tbsp size of rock sugar
- 4 tbsp of Quốc Viet Pork Soup Base
- mushroom seasoning
- ground pepper
- 2-3 tbsp of cooking oil
Garnishes and Noodles
- chopped onion and cilantro
- fried shallot
- ground pepper
- lime wedges
- fresh chili
- Banh Canh/Tapioca Noodles – Please see package below which can be found in the frozen section at your Asian grocery stores. Each package makes 4 bowls. I boiled them in water for about a minutes until soften, drained in a colander and flushed with cold water, set aside. You can also substitute for Japanese Udon Noodles and cook according to package instructions.
Directions
- Add to inner pot: parboiled spareribs, mushrooms, carrots, onion, rock sugar, and 4 tbsp of Quốc Viet Pork Soup Base. Pour about 8 cups of boiling water (using boiling water will speed up pressure building time). Please be sure all ingredients are submerged and close lid with knob on Sealing. Select Manual/Pressure Cook, High Pressure, 8 minutes, 20 minutes NPR or Full NPR.
- In a pan or skillet on medium heat, add 2-3 tbsp of cooking oil. Once it’s hot add slice shallot to release fragrance. Add blue crabs/claws to the pan and saute for 1 minute. Follow with peeled shrimps and continue sauteing until the shrimps turn slight pink. Season with 3 tbsp of Crab Paste with Bean Oil, 1/2 tsp of ground pepper and 2 tbsp of mushroom seasoning. Stir well for another 2 minutes and turn off heat. Remove just the shrimps and set aside.
- Once cook time is up wait an additional 20 minutes for the IP to release pressure on its own, then gently QR. Open lid to remove mushrooms and set aside to cool down. Discard onion. Pour 4 more cups of boiling water (about 12 cups of water total). Gently add the crabs from Step 2 into the broth. Ladle some broth into the pan to extract all the seasoning from the crab pan into the broth pot. Switch to Saute mode and bring broth to a boil. Season to taste with some mushroom seasoning (I added about 2 tbsp) and more soup base/sugar if needed. Please adjust the broth to YOUR liking.
- Once the mushrooms have cooled down a bit, use a sharp kitchen scissor to remove the stem (please see photos below). Then cut the mushrooms into small chunks and add to the broth pot.
- To serve, place cooked noodles in a large bowl along with your desired amount of shrimps. Ladle boiling broth with some carrots, mushrooms, crabs and spareribs. Garnish with chopped onion and cilantro, fried shallot and ground pepper. Serve on the side are lime wedges and fresh chili.
OMG thank you so much for putting this recipe together.
Hi Katie, We don’t have Quoc Viet foods in Australia, and to import them would be very expensive. What can I use as an alternative?
hi katie, how do you cook the noodles? as easy as it may seem, last time i bought noodles like this frozen and it broke into tiny little pieces. package said to NOT thaw so i added the frozen block directly into boiling water and it was so hard to break the noodles up, and when it did, it literally became tiny little pieces and inedible.