HOW TO COOK SINGAPORE CHILI CRAB
I love seafood, especially mud crabs. With mud crabs, the usual vital point on how to prepare it best is to get the freshest ingredients, especially the seafood, itself. For this, you must find your trusted seafood supplier here in Singapore that provides fresh mud crabs. Because of my love for mud crabs, I set up a small restaurant for it here in Singapore. I ensured that we only get our mud crabs on wholesale from a fresh seafood supplier. They are also live mud crab importers. This is the recipe of one of my favourite live mud crab dishes: Singapore Chili crab 1 large live mud crab, cleaned •60 ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil •¼ tsp salt •250 ml (1 cup) tomato passata (or 1x 400 g can crushed tomatoes) •250 ml (1 cup) fish stock or chicken stock or water •2 tbsp finely grated palm sugar •1 tbsp white vinegar •1 tbsp soy sauce •1 tsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp cold water •1 egg, lightly beaten •20 g butter •3 spring onions, green ends only, cut into 5 cm lengths •thinly sliced red bird’s eye chilli and coriander sprigs, to serve For the base paste, here are the ingredients you will need: 1 medium brown onion, sliced •4 garlic cloves •6 long fresh red chillies, deseeded •1 tbsp ketchup •1 tsp belacan (shrimp paste), optional
The struggle is always the handling of the live mud crab. To properly do this, put the crab in the freezer for an hour to make it sleep. Once you have put them out, you can now prepare it well. To prepare them, you will just have to pull the top shell, or the carapace, away from the body. Discard the gills, but leave some of the fat of the crab, or the tomalley. Twist the claws off and divide the crab into four. You will have 2 legs on each piece. Making the base paste is simple. You would just mix all the ingredients. Put them in the blender to process them. Leave both the crab and the paste aside. In a wok, heat the oil in medium heat. After, toss the paste in and fry it for 5 minutes until there is fragrance, and the oil separates from the solid. Toss thee crab, season to taste, and wait until it changes colour. The next that you will add are passata, stock, sugar, vinegar and soy sauce until it is coated. Let the crab fat be stirred. Cover the wok and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. After this, transfer the crabs to a large platter. While continuously stirring the left over paste, drizzle some cornflour mixture, add beaten egg, butter and spring onions. Do taste tests and once satisfied, pour it on top of the crab. Drizzle coriander and chili and serve. With these types of dishes, it is necessary to get imported fresh live mud crabs from a trusted seafood supplier on wholesale. A fresh live mud crab will make delicious dishes.