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Recipes with mud crabs

5 recipes that use mud crabs, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Chilli mud crab, takes 45 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, ginger and coriander.

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Singapore chilli crab

Chilli crab was first sold from a pushcart on the Kallang river in the 1950s and is now the dish visitors queue for along Singapore's East Coast seafood strip. Big mud crabs are cut up, wok-fried and simmered in a thick, sweet, tangy and gently hot sauce of chilli, tomato and garlic, which is then silked with beaten egg. Everyone eats with their hands and mops up the sauce with fried or steamed mantou buns. It is a weekend or celebration meal, messy and loud. Buy crabs live or freshly cooked the same day from a fishmonger you trust. Discard any live crab that doesn't move, smells of ammonia or has a cracked, leaking shell. The common mistake is boiling the sauce after adding the egg, which scrambles it into lumps; pour it in a thin stream over a low heat. Chef's tip: ask the fishmonger to clean and quarter the crab for you, and crack each claw lightly with the back of a cleaver so the sauce soaks in.

55 minSingaporeanFishSpicy
by KrazyBadal 1 views

Andaman mud crab curry

The mangrove creeks around Port Blair give the Andaman Islands their famous mud crabs, and families of Bengali, Tamil and Malayali descent there cook them in a rich red curry of coconut, tamarind and roasted chilli for Sunday lunch and celebrations. It is messy, hands-on eating with plain rice, cracking the claws to reach the sweet meat. Buy live or very fresh crabs from a trusted fishmonger and have them dispatched and cleaned there. The common mistake is undercooking the crab: cook until every shell is bright orange-red and the meat inside is white and opaque. Chef's tip: crack the claws lightly with the back of a knife before they go in, so the gravy seasons the meat.

65 minIndianFishGluten freeSpicy
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Chilli mud crab

Mud crabs are caught in the mangroves of Queensland and the Northern Territory, and in Cairns, Darwin and Brisbane the favourite way to eat them is Asian-Australian style, wok-tossed in a sticky sauce of chilli, garlic, ginger and tomato. It is messy, hands-on eating with crusty bread or rice to mop the sauce. Ask your fishmonger to clean and cut the crab into pieces for you, and cook it the same day. A common mistake is using too little sauce; the shells soak it up. Chef's tip: crack the claws with the back of a heavy knife before cooking so the sauce gets in.

45 minAustralianFishSpicy
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Caril de caranguejo

Mud crabs from the mangrove creeks around Inhambane and Maputo Bay end up in this curry at Sunday lunch and on beach-shack menus, and eating it is a happy, messy job with fingers and crackers. The sauce is a gentle Mozambican caril rather than an Indian one: onion, tomato, garlic and a mild curry powder cooked down and finished with coconut milk, so it turns rich, orange and slightly sweet, with crab juices running through it. Serve it with plenty of white rice or xima to mop up the sauce, and lemon wedges on the side. Ask the fishmonger for freshly cooked crabs, cleaned and cracked, or crabs already killed and prepared by them, so there is no live crab to handle at home. Chef's tip: the common mistake is boiling the crab in the sauce for ages, which makes the meat stringy; warm cooked crab through for just a few minutes.

60 minSouthern AfricanFishGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Black pepper crab

If chilli crab is Singapore's sweet crowd-pleaser, black pepper crab is the one locals often order beside it: dry rather than saucy, sharp with freshly cracked black pepper, rich with butter and with a salty edge from oyster and soy sauce. It was created in the 1950s–60s at the seafood restaurants of Upper Serangoon and East Coast, and is eaten at long family dinners with rice or plain bread to mop the buttery wok juices. Note that this dish contains butter, so it is not dairy free. Buy crabs live or freshly cooked the same day from a fishmonger you trust. Discard any live crab that doesn't move, smells of ammonia or has a cracked, leaking shell. The common mistake is using pre-ground pepper powder, which tastes dusty and burns; crack whole peppercorns coarsely. Chef's tip: toast the cracked pepper in the dry wok for a minute before the butter goes in to wake up its aroma.

45 minSingaporeanFishSpicy
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with mud crabs