Name: Spicy crabs
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 2 min
Total time: 17 min
Yield: Serves 2–4
Cuisine: Pakistani
Ingredients: ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder; 1 crab, humanely killed by your fishmonger, steamed and claws detached; 1 tsp each dry-roasted cumin and coriander (cilantro) seeds; 2–3 dried red chillies; 2 bay leaves; 3–4 tbsp sunflower oil; lemon wedges; salt, to taste; juice of 1 lemon; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; fresh tender coriander (cilantro) leaves with stems, chopped

Preparation info

Serves
2–4

Difficulty
Easy
Ready in
20 min

Appears in

Summers Under the Tamarind Tree

By Sumayya Usmani

Published 2016

About

As a teenager I’d take weekend trips to Kemari jetty for a night-crabbing cruise with friends. Once out of the harbour, we would throw lines in and ‘fish’ our crabs for dinner. The boatmen then served up a feast of fresh ‘tawa’ (pan) cooked crabs with red chilli masala mopped up with naans. The rustic presentation and simplicity of the spices is deeply etched in my mind, and though the boatmen would never share their recipe, I have created this from memory.

Ingredients

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Ingredients

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