Chris, I will post the recipe I used, but it could do with tweaking. I'll post it as is, then add comments.
CHILLI CRAB (The Complete Asian Cookbook, Family Circle)
What would you do 919On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Giggles I would do the honorable thing: lie. I'd say, "Thank you so much for the invitation, but we can't make it...
1kg (2lb) raw blue swimmer crabs 2 Tbsp peanut oil 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger 2 small red chillies, seeded and sliced
Sauce 2 Tbsp hoisin sauce 1-2C tomato sauce 1-4C sweet chilli sauce 1Tbsp fish sauce 1-2 tsp sesame oil 1-4C water
4 spring onions, finely sliced for garnish (opt)
Clean crabs and quarter. Crack claws open so sauce can enter meat. Heat wok till very hot. Add oil, swirl to coat Add garlic, ginger and chilli and stir fry for 1-2 minutes Add crab. Stir fry 5-7 mins or till meat turns white Stir in sauce. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer, covered for 6 mins or till crabs cooked through and flesh flakes easily. Serve. Garnish with spring onions. (serves four)
My notes: (1) Tomato sauce is like ketchup. There is far too much tomato sauce in this recipe. It overpowers it. Next time I cook this I plan to add no more than 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce, and see how I like it.
24 hour saladHere's the one that I've made; it's ingredient and rather time intensive, but the results are pretty darned good. :) And I think it serves closer to...
(2) I used a small wok, on the gas ring of our barbecue. The wok could barely cope with all the crab and it took longer to cook than it said. I ended up covering the wok with a big pot lid to keep the heat in before the sauce was added.
(3) We ate this as an appetiser, before the main barbecue. We had crusty bread. Didn't want any other sides as it was messy finger food. The recipe suggests boiled white rice, which would go nicely to soak up the sauce.
(4) the crab was frozen and cleaned, raw blue swimmer crabs from India. As you might have seen from the photo of the steamed crab I did yesterday, they thawed and cooked very well. I can't access fresh crabs so I use what I can get.
Kathy In NZ
