Chilli Crab Recipe

This dish is known as Chili Crab or Singapore crab and is one of the best tasting dishes you could ever make. It is a definite crowd pleaser and deceptively easy to make. Serve with very thinly cooked roti bread or hot steaming rice.

Ingredients

• 2 medium or 1 large raw crab(s)
  
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 5 cloves garlic
  
• 2 cm cubed fresh ginger
  
• 1 small onion, finely diced
  
• 2 teaspoons chilli power
  
• ¼ cup tomato sauce
  
• ¼ cup chilli sauce
  
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
  
• 2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine (optional)

Wash crabs well, scrubbing away any mossy patches on the shell. Remove hard top shell, stomach bag and fibrous tissue and with cleaver, chop crab into 4 pieces, or 6 pieces if they are large. Using a hammer or meat tenderizer, crack the claws as well.

Heat a wok, add oil and when oil is very hot, fry the crab pieces until they change colour, turning them so they cook on all sides. Remove to a plate. Turn heat to low and fry the onion until it caramalizes into a nice yellowish colour.

Add the ginger and garlic, stirring constantly until they are cooked but not brown. Mix the soy, chilli, tomoto sauces with the sesame oil, chinese cooking wine, sugar and salt ingredients in a bowl. Add to pan, bring to a boil and return crabs to the wok and allow to simmer in the sauce for 3 minutes, adding very little water if sauce reduces too much. Serve with rice. As a suggestion, you can also try pan-frying 2 small fish fillets to add as a garnish.