Chilli Crabs

I cooked this dish last Friday to celebrate WT finally has a break to stay in Singapore for two weeks! Cooking Chilli Carbs really not an easy task, you need to have live crabs, the frozen one is not advisable. In this post I'll share with you on how I put my crabs into "sleep" before it goes under the chopper. 

I bought four medium live crabs with S$22, this is really cheap if compared to eating the chilli crabs in a restaurant! While I was choosing the crab, one of it literally bounce up to attack me!! Luckily its claws were bound. With two layers of plastic bag the live crabs went straight into freezer to...sleep! Then I went straight to pick up my son from school. Came home, lunch, washed my dishes, when I took them out from freezer it was an hour later. I bathe the crabs, haha, ya! brush them with my kitchen brush, and then ...suddenly two of the crabs woke up, moving!! I was shocked, how come they still ALIVE, straight to the freezer the two went!

Cleaning crab is an important task, if didn't clean it probably the dish will stink!  

Steps to clean the crabs: 

1. Scrape the crab with kitchen brush under running water (my brush is with a long handle for easy holding)  

2. Use knife to poke into between shell and fresh of the crab to pull open the top shell, it reverts the spongy grey portion of the crabs, this stink portion has to be discarded totally.

3. Cut the crabs into half like in number 4. Wash the crabs clean, smash the claws with a  cleaver to allow the sauce to penetrate later.

The paste itself is very spicy, if you are like me which is unable to take super spicy food, you can add more tomato sauce and sugar to make it less spicy.

See above steps on how to clean the crabs

This dish is yummy to go with buns or steamed white rice!  

Recipe adapted from Chng Kee's with modifications

1 bottle of Chng Kee's Singapore Chilli Crabs Sauce

4 fresh crabs

5 tbsp oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp sugar

600ml boiling water

5 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp corn flour mix with a bit of cold water

1 egg, beaten

few sprigs coriander leaves to garnish



Steps:

1. Heat wok (or large pan) with oil, stir-fry garlic for 2 mins, add Singapore Chilli Sauce, stir-fry until fragrant. Add crabs into the wok, stir-fry for 5 mins.

2. Add light soy sauce, sugar, water, tomato sauce, and oyster sauce, simmer crabs for 15 mins or until the crabs are cooked. Add a little more water if the wok begins to dry up.

3. When sauce is boiling, add corn flour mixture to thicken the sauce, stir in beaten egg.

4. Garnish with coriander leaves, serve at room temperature with hot rice or buns.