Name: Black pepper crab with curry leaves
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Singaporean
Ingredients: 1 bunch spring onions, very finely shredded; 1 tbsp flaggi sauce or dark soy sauce; 2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce; 1 tbsp fish sauce; 2 cooked mud crabs or blue-swimmer crabs (ask the fishmonger to remove the gills), or 8 cooked cold-water fat crab claws (in the shell); 3 tsp coarsely crushed black pepper or chopped fresh peppercorns; 15 curry leaves; 1 tsp caster sugar; 4 tbsp groundnut oil; a knob of fresh root ginger, peeled and grated; 3 long dried red chillies, deseeded and chopped; 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Food and Travels

By Alastair Hendy

Published 2004

About

Chilli crab is Singapore’s fave wokked mollusc, and comes in all guises. This one I unearthed in a food hall, and with a touch of India about its gills, it’s gorgaous. Every nook, cranny and hollow yields the sweetest - sometimes meagre, sometimes generous - morsels. It’s a slow-picking game, so the pleasure comes in little doses and spurts; hands-on stuff, which demands constant licking, so finger bowls and wipes at the ready, and that bowl of regular rice.