Malaysian Salt-Smoked Whole Crab

Chinese people love eating crustaceans with their shells on. I’m definitely guilty of eating fried shrimp with the shell on—they are delicious! Cooking with the shell helps retain moisture and shape, and more importantly, the cooked shells impart a beautifully potent aroma. But we Malaysians take it one step further; we cook our whole crab in hot salt rocks. As a result, the crab has a very complex smoked salt aroma, and the salt that you taste on your lips as you suck the meat out of the c