CHILLI CRAB
Ingedients
1 x 1kg Mud Crab
1/3 cup peanut oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped Ginger
1 teaspoon finely chopped Garlic
½ cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Sambal Oelek
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
1/3 cup of water
Preparing The Crab
Place crab in ice slurry until totally immobile
Remove top shell of the crab
Twist off legs and claws
Remove the feathery gills and other internals.
Using a knife chop the body into four
Crack the claws with a good hit with the back of a heavy knife
Method of Cooking
Heat the oil in a wok and cook a quarter of the crab for 2 mins or until it changes colour, remove to a bowl
Cook the remaining crab in batches adding them to the bowl.
Add the ginger and garlic to the oil in the wok cook gently till golden brown.
Add tomato sauce, sambal oelek, brown sugar and water.
Bring to the boil, simmer about 3 mins or until oil rises to the surface.
Add the crab and cook turning for 8 mins.
Serve with steamed rice.
A Few Notes.
Above is the original recipe.
We have made a ton of this stuff over the last 15 years, sometimes batches big enough to feed forty plus people.
A few handy hints I have learnt are.
The original recipe is a bit short on the chilli sauce mix…..I usually double the amount of water, sugar, tomato sauce, sambal oelek, ginger, garlic and oil regardless of the size batch Im cooking . This also increases the amount of oil and makes the deep frying bit easier and faster.
Dont panic about all that tomato sauce, once its all cooked up ya wont know its there.
Take care cracking claws, don’t smash them…you don’t want all the meat to fall out when cooking,
Really big claws should be cooked a little longer than 3 mins.
The little legs (not the claws) really only need to be tossed around in the oil until they turn red. Cooked to long they go dry inside
Twist legs off rather than pull, if you pull you also pull half the meat out of the body section.
Cooked this way served with rice one good sized mud crab will feed 2 people…..no matter weather you are feeding 2 or 40
Sambal Oelek varies in heat from brand to brand, the BEST brand I have found is “KOKITA brand” its hard to find but worth grabbing if you see it.
Palm Sugar is available at asian stores and is used in this dish traditionally. The dark brown type has more flavour than the lighter coloured one.
Chilli Crab is the National dish of Singapore.