Cafe Lula

As far as my family is concerned, this is pretty much the only way to eat crab. Occasionally, if we have enough crab for two nights or not enough crab for this recipe, we’ll make a very yummy crab pasta. But otherwise, if you have crab, do this. Yes.

Honestly, I have all these crab recipes I’ve saved from magazines but any time we actually have crab I can’t bear to mash it up into crab cakes or turn it into soup. This recipe uses the crab meat from the body of the crab but keeps the claws whole, and there’s something nice about that. It does get messy, but it’s fun to scoop the meat out of the claws at the table 😀 We use a massive amount of crab but you could easily reduce the crab meat and add some prawns. I don’t know why we’ve never done this. We should.

Singapore chilli crab

My mum’s recipe (loosely based on a recipe from Rick Stein’s Seafood Odyssey)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

white meat plus whole claws from 2 cooked crabs or 680g/1.5lbs white crab meat (if you can’t be bothered faffing with claws)

1-2 tbsp sesame oil, for frying

2 echalion shallots

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp ginger paste (we use Bart’s)

1 tsp chilli paste (or use fresh chillies)

3 tbsp soy sauce

150g ketchup

300ml warm water

black pepper, to season

Preheat the oven to 190C. Put the crab claws on an oven tray and put this in the oven.You want to cook these until they’re heated through, which should take 5-10 minutes.

In a large wok, heat the sesame oil over a medium-high heat and fry the shallots for a few minutes until softened. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli paste and stir well. Add the soy sauce and ketchup, stir well and then add the water. Heat the sauce until simmering, then add the crab meat, heating through. Remove the crab claws from the oven and put them in the sauce. It is ready once all the crab is nice and hot.

Serve with rice and crusty bread.