How to Make Your Own Singapore Chilli Crab

This is a delicious recipe to keep you busy during isolated days, boring rainy nights or balmy humid days. The sweetness of the crab is complemented by the hot chilly to tickle your taste buds.

Our traditional Singaporean flavours complete this recipe with an abundance of subtle nuances, that make it difficult to stop eating this delicious dish. Cook up your dish with a glass of wine on the side. Serve with lightly fried buns (man tou), or a simple bowl of steamed rice. This dish is obviously best eaten with your hands to add to the ambience. Having it in the comfort of your home means you do not have to worry about how you look. Get ready to get your hands dirty!

Get all your ingredients at the ready

There are 3 separate parts to this Singapore Chilli Crab recipe. Let’s start with your crab mixture.

Crab Ingredients

• 900 grams live Sri Lankan Wild Catch Crab from Live Crab Delivery Singapore
• 2 cups of fresh coriander with stalks and leaves separated (keep the stalks) – chop both finely
• 5 spring onions (chop the bulb finely and slice the leaves thinly and keep these separate)
• About 2 inches of a piece of ginger, which should be chopped finely
• 2 garlic cloves that also need to be chopped finely
• 2 Tablespoons of peanut oil
• 1 large red chilli that must be de-seeded, chopped finely with a little kept aside to be served separately
• 1 teaspoon of corn starch diluted in 120 ml of water

How to prepare your crab

Remove the crab’s legs and pincers by twisting these in a rapid motion to reveal the soft sweet flesh inside. To remove the main shell of the crab, turn it top side up and place your thumbs at the centre of its underside.

Apply pressure to crack the shell open and then remove the crab’s gills before getting to the white meat. Separate the white and brown meat into bowls and then do the same with the legs and pincers.

Next, you will want to prepare a bowl with chilled water. Add your coriander leaves and the thinly spliced green onions to this cold water. The icy water will cause the green onion slices to curl.

Set your crab and coriander mixture aside and begin preparing your chilli sauce

Get your chilli sauce ingredients ready

You will need these ingredients for your chilli sauce.

• 1 sliced spring onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 small red chilli peppers
• 1 inner stalk of lemongrass roughly chopped
• 1.5 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of caramel sugar
• 2 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon of shrimp paste
• 1 tablespoon of chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

Take your coriander stalks that you prepared for your crab mixture and place these in a blender. Add your finely sliced spring onion and 2 garlic cloves to a blender. Blend briefly so that a rough mixture is maintained. Then add 4 small red chilli to this mixture (do remember to remove the seeds).

Place your frying pan on the stove over a medium heat, and add a tablespoon of oil to heat up. Once warm, place your blended chilli mix in the pan and leave to simmer for approximately 9 minutes, or until the mixture has become soft.

While your chilli mixture is cooking, prepare your wok or a larger frying pan on another stove plate. Place 1 tablespoon of oil into the pan, and also turn the heat up to a medium level. Once warmed up sufficiently, add the finely chopped spring onions from your crab mixture ingredients to the pan. Then place your garlic and chilly in the pan and cook this mixture for up to 10 minutes.

It is now time to add your crab meat to the wok mixture. Mix up thoroughly and then include your chilli mixture from the small fry pan. Stir well, and pour in your corn starch mixture to thicken your sauce. Simmer for another 8 minutes while stirring intermittently to bring out all the delicious flavours.

Serve with side dishes

Your side dishes will depend entirely on your preferences. Your chilli crab can be served with steamed rice, steamed and fried mantou, along with an array of local tzi char dishes.

Your delicious Singapore Chilli Crab is now ready to serve to your guests or to be devoured by tou.

Dish up your crab. Decorate with your coriander, curled green spring onions, or chilli. 

This meal is enough for 4 small adults or 2 adults and 2 children. You may want to include some hot Chinese tea or ice cold Coca-cola before embarking on this perfect home cooked feast!