Singapore Chilli Crab

 

In April, it is mud crab season in Sydney (Australia) and this dish is one of my favourites

In my opinion, to pick the best (fat) crab, look for an old shell.  This means the crab has not recently shed its shell, so will be full of meat.  Another tip to look for is that the teeth on the crab claws have been worn down... meaning its been cracking and eating plenty.

SOME THOUGHTS

The mud crab needs to be live when you buy it... if you can't kill it yourself, you have to ask the fish monger to do it for you- take it straight home to finish cleaning/preparing.  If this is your scenario, please don't buy a dry crab (in a box or crate with no water).  For dry crab, we need to let them sit in some salty water for few hours to rehydrate before we kill them.  If you cannot find wet crab (in a tank with water at your market), then honestly, I think it's best to stick to dine in a restaurant, or go to a BYO crab restaurant.

We also have been using Prima Taste Singapore Chilli Crab Sauce Kit to shortcut time/effort, but if you want a full recipe to make your own paste, I think this one is good https://www.recipetineats.com/singapore-chilli-crab

INGREDIENTS

1 x mud crab (our dry crab weighed just over 1kg)

1 x Prima Taste Singapore Chilli Crab Sauce Kit

2 eggs (beaten)

300g Tomato passata (we used Mutti)

300ml water

1T Potato starch +water (to thicken sauce)

Oil (amount does depend on your wok or saucepan size)

Spring onion and/or coriander to garnish

500g fresh egg noodles

PREPARATION

Please Dexter your kitchen or set up an area with splash guard to kill and prepare the crab.  Have a bin/plastic bag nearby for rubbish and a big clean bowl for your crab pieces.

Place your live (tied up) crab on its back on a big chopping board (eyes/mouth at top).  Using a sharp heavy chopper, cut the crab in half down the middle (starting at eyes side to make sure it dies immediately)

Remove the base flap, then pull off the head cover and clear out the digestive system (preferably without bursting anything). Trim the side shell off the head cover and set the head cover aside. 

Moving to the body of the crab, remove all the gills on both sides of the crab.  You may see orange parasites, we don't eat those either, so discard.

Cut the claws off and claw joints.  Divide the body into six parts along each leg. Using the chopper, crack the crab claw parts open.

METHOD

Pre-cook the egg noodles and drain.  

Note: we divided our noodles into 2 batches and cooked in a small non-stick frypan.  You can also use a giant frypan, but it will be very hard to flip the noodles without breaking them.

Heat oil (to about half way) in a frypan.  Add noodles evenly to near the height of the frypan.  Cook until browned.  

Flip and cook until browned.  Remove and set aside to cool, then cut into triangles/quarters like pizza slices.  If you are doing 2 batches, then repeat this step, then plate the noodles.

To short cut things, we have been using the Prima Taste Singapore Chilli Crab Sauce Kit.  It has:

1 pkt Chilli Crab Paste

1 pkt Extra Hot Chilli Mix

1 pkt Chilli Crab Premix

We don't really follow their cooking method and we also have some modifications.

To cook the crab, make sure to use a wok or saucepan large enough to lay all your crab flat in and contain sauce.

Heat up some oil (we used about 2T) and put in the chilli crab paste.  Add the crab pieces (except the head shell) and cook, turning crab over to make sure both sides are covered in sauce/cook (in total about 2-3 minutes).

Add the Extra Hot Chilli Mix and tomato passata to the crab. Mix well.  Add the head shell and spoon some mixture over it to cook.  Cover and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Remove all the crab pieces and plate except for head shell.

Add Chilli Crab Premix and water to sauce. mix well and let boil.  Make the potato starch into a slurry, add to sauce and stir thoroughly while boiling to thicken.

Pour beaten eggs into the sauce whilst slowly stirring to create egg ribbons.

Plate up your fried noodle and crab pieces.  Scoop majority of sauce over.  Cover with head shell, spoon remaining sauce over and garnish.

Just in case you are wondering what vegetables to serve with - we did have some choy sum.