how to make headcrabs June 14, 2009

I’m always thinking about what kind of bento I can make next, and what kind of how-to I should do next. Sometimes, my boyfriend gives me suggestions for how-tos, and he’s been telling me that I should do a how-to on the headcrabs from the headcrab bento. I wasn’t sure because I really didn’t think anyone would want to make & eat headcrab, and I asked him “why headcrab?” He said that because not only it looked really like headcrab, but it was very delicious.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do for the how-to this weekend, and it was a request from my only customer after all, so I decided to do this. Of course, you don’t have to make headcrabs. It tastes exactly the same if it’s not shaped like head-crab. You can just a recipe for a simple finger food. (Not even sure you can call this a recipe…)

[How to make headcrabs]
– Potato
– Mayonnaise
– Parmesan cheese
– Salt & Pepper
– Bacon (You can put corn, or cheese instead of bacon)

1. Peel and boil potatoes until tender. (*If you’re making headcrabs, make sure you leave some potato for the legs & teeth, and keep it in water until you use it.)

Nothing special, but just thought I'd put a picture.

Make sure you keep a piece of potato in water. Otherwise it'll get pinkish brown.

2. Drain water, and lightly mash the potatoes. (*I like when there’s still some chunks of potato in it.)

Just mashin'

3. Put some salt, pepper and mayonnaise. (*I don’t have specific measurements for this. Just taste it and adjust the ingredients to your preferences.)

I used Japanese mayonnaise, but you can of course use American mayonnaise.

Ideal consistency

3. Chop bacon into tiny bits and cook them on a pan. Cook them extra crispy!

4. When the bacon is done, take just the bacon out the pan with a fork, and put it into the mashed potato. (Don’t throw away the grease from bacon yet.)

5. Make a small ball with the mashed potato, and make lines of dents on on the front with a toothpick.

6. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over them, and put it in a toaster oven (or oven). Cook it until the surface is golden brown.

7. While the headcrabs are being cooked, cut potato you saved into the shape of legs and teeth.

8. Cook the pieces in the bacon grease. (*You don’t need to use bacon grease. I just use it because I’m lazy. :P)

9. When the headcrabs are done, put the legs and teeth underneath the body.

Don't they look adorably delicious?

10. If you want more realistic headcrabs, you can put some BBQ sauce or/and ketchup for the gore effect.

Looking even better with bloody BBQ sauce. 🙂

Hmmmmm, they look ready to be eaten!

It’s basically baked mashed potato balls. You can of course put crab meat in it, but bacon is what makes their outside look zombie like. The legs and teeth will fall apart when you pick up the body. If you’re thinking of serving these to other people (then you’re awesome), you might want to put individual headcrabs onto a small piece of tin foil or sliced veggie or something so the legs don’t fall off.

Whenever I say “potato salad”, I usually mean lightly mashed potato with mayonnaise. Once you have plain lightly mashed potato, you can add bacon, corn, cheese, egg, etc… pretty much anything you want. You can wrap it with lettuce to make a character (see “how to make Yoshi”), make croquettes, or just eat it as is.

How to make headcrabs on my flickr (There are more pictures!)

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!