National Dishes of the World

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Chilli crab
Photo: megawatts86, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Chilli crab

Crabs in a thick, sweet and spicy tomato-chilli sauce thickened with egg, mopped up with fried mantou buns.

Eaten in: Singapore

Prep
30 min
Cooking
25 min
Total
55 min
Servings
4

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About the dish

Chilli crab is one of Singapore’s most famous dishes, served in seafood restaurants, often outdoors by the bay. Large mud crabs are cut into pieces, briefly fried and then braised in a thick sauce of chilli, garlic, ginger, tomato or ketchup and a little sugar, thickened with starch and beaten egg. The sauce is sweet and fragrant rather than fiercely hot, and mopping it up is half the pleasure – that is what mantou buns, deep-fried or steamed, are for. It is eaten with the hands, cracking the shells, with plenty of napkins on the table. Its great rival is black pepper crab.

Main ingredients

  • mud crabs
  • chilli
  • garlic
  • ginger
  • ketchup
  • egg
  • mantou buns

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Chilli crab

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/chilli-crab

Ingredients

4 servings

4 servings

Method

  1. Blend the chillies, shallots, garlic and ginger to a smooth paste.

  2. Crack the crab claws lightly with a pestle so the sauce can get inside.

  3. Heat the oil in a large wok and fry the paste for 4–5 minutes until fragrant and the oil starts to separate.

  4. Add the ketchup, chilli sauce, sugar, soy sauce and water and bring to the boil.

  5. Add the crab pieces, cover and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring, until the shells are red and the meat white.

  6. Stir in the cornflour, and once the sauce has thickened, drizzle in the eggs in a thin stream, stirring gently so they form ribbons.

  7. Scatter with spring onion and coriander and serve at once with fried or steamed mantou buns.

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