Chilli mud crab

[Fishinggod6]

Found this on the shok fishing app - was delicious


Chilli Mud Crab

The week I first cooked this dish was when my boyfriend at the time first took me mud crab fishing. That month he was obsessed with it. Every night going back to his secret spots using different methods and techniques. He even tried cat food as bait, which is quite common apparently!! He was pretty angry the night we went back and someone poached his traps, “This is not part of the fishing code,” he said!

Being from Cornwall, England this was a new experience for me. We went wading through the bush, deep somewhere in the inlet. All I can remember was seeing millions of little crabs scurrying about the place. I was on tips toes, thinking get me out of here!!

The night after we caught one. The look on his face was priceless. So I had to cook him something special. He’s also obsessed with eating lots of chilli in everything so, chilli mud crab it was. So I raided my cupboards and came up with this spicy number. That night I had my first proper feed of muddies and I've been hooked ever since.

As I’m a chef I do realise mud crabs can be expensive to buy. Go and have a go at dropping a few nets. I highly recommend it. My mum always told me a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I think this meal sealed the deal. As he popped the question last year!

There are several on-line tutorials on the web to help you cook and prepare the mud crabs step by step. Always use the most humane way. My recommendation would be to pop them in the freezer for 30 minutes first so, that go to steep and die before you plunge them into boiling water.

Ingredients

1 Large mud crab cooked. Legs and claws removed, and cracked. Meat from bodies removed

Chilli Sauce
4 tbsp Sunflower oil
3 Cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp, of fresh root ginger, finely grated
4 Shallots (Spring onions in the UK), thinly sliced at an angle, save some for garnish
2 medium red hot chilli’s, finely chopped
½ green chilli, thinly sliced for garnish
200ml tomato passata
50ml soy sauce
2 tbsp of tomato paste or tomato sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
20g sugar
½ tsp of cornflour mixed with 200ml water
Seasoning
Fresh herbs, chopped roasted peanuts and kaffir lime leaf to garnish

Method
Heat the oil in the wok over a medium heat. Add the garlic, shallots, ginger and chilli and stir-fry for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato passata, soy sauce, tomato paste, rice vinegar and sugar, and mix through. Add the cornflour/water solution (this will thicken the sauce) and bring to the boil. Season

Add the crab and loose meat, and heat through. At this point I also added some cooked noodles but you can serve it with steamed rice or a green salad and crusty bread.

Place in a bowl and top with sliced kaffir lime leaf, coriander, basil, fresh chilli, shallots and peanuts

Serve at the table with lots of napkins and a finger bowl.

A deliciously messy crab dish!

Happy Cooking

Emma-Kate

[Barry Ehsman]

You are very lucky he proposed because if he didn't I would, a Chef for a wife WOW.

[toddo1]

You are very lucky he proposed because if he didn't I would, a Chef for a wife WOW.

My wife's a cook...... at least I call her the cook......


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[kingtin]

I know it's an old post but call me a culinary philistine if you wish, but I can't think of any nicer feed than muddies, caught in the vicinity of Crusoe island, boiled within the hour, along with any prawns caught, in plain sea water and eaten as soon as cooled. I appreciate the OP's intention/culinary skill, and that of other chefs, but for myself, even as someone who cooks up a mean chilli or curry, I could never consider drowning the sweetness of fresh crab in anything other than plain salt water.