Singapore Chilli Crabs Prawns

If you are a foodie and you live in Australia, you will know about the current popular TV series "Masterchef Australia "on Channel 10 - the country's biggest and toughest amateur cooking competition. If you are not here, you still can watch the shown episodes on the Official MasterChef Australia website.

You must be wondering what this dish having to do with "MasterChef Australia"?

Firstly, I have to rant. Please excuse me, but I have to do it! Why do they need to show MasterChef Australia at the time slot of 7 pm daily??????? They don't think about us: The Mums!!! 7 pm -8 pm is the busiest time for us. Dinner time, cleaning after dinner mess time, bath time, changing to PJs time, story time, bed time, making sure their school bag is ready for school the following day time. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Thank goodness I can catch up all the episodes on their official website. Although I am not totally up to date, at least I won't miss out on any episode.

As I was watching the first episode, when one of the top 20 contestants Lucas Parson, an ex professional golfer who has played with Tiger Woods and who currently owns a coffee shop, impressed the judges by cooking his favourite dish "Singapore Chilli Mud Crab", I thought, "It's been a while since I cooked this dish."

You can watch the video clip of Lucas Parson cooking his signature dish HERE.

Lucas steamed his mud crab, but the traditional way to prepare this popular dish is to coat the crab in flour and deep fry it in hot oil. This cooking process is to enable the thick eggy sauce to cling to the floury layer of the crab shell, so you can lick the sauce off the shell before continuing the treasure hunting to find the crab meat.

When judge Matt Preston questioned Lucas about one of the ingredients in her dish, "Tomato sauce from the bottle?", Lucas answered, "Yes, from the bottle, can't get the sauce right without it". Matt nodded with approval. Lucas and Matt were absolutely right! That's the 'SECRET' of this Singapore Chilli Crab dish. It's the bottled tomato sauce (we actually use Tomato Ketchup in Malaysia, it's thicker and sweeter) and also.... the Maggi Chilli sauce (the Malaysian version, quite close to Australian Maggi Sweet Chilli sauce but not exactly the same).

Note: In Australia, we call this dish "Singapore Chilli Crab" but back in Malaysia, we call it "Sweet and Sour Chilli Crab".

Mr J is too lazy to eat crab (unless it is peeled) and it's no fun to eat the whole crab by myself. "Good food needs good company" is my motto. I thought "Why don't I replace the crab with prawns so we can still enjoy mopping up the sauce with soft white bread?"

There are many different recipes for Singapore Chilli Crab, but the basic ingredients and cooking methods are the same. You can deep fry or steam your crab. You can adjust the ingredients to suit your taste (more sweet, less sour, more spicy, less garlicky....). This dish is very versatile and that's the fun part about cooking. Don't stick to the recipe 100%. Get hold of the basic recipe and be brave, be adventurous to play with the ingredients. A good example is when Lucas mentioned lime and palm sugar as some of the ingredients in his sauce. Traditionally we use rice wine vinegar and sugar. That's the concept.

I don't pretend this is the most authentic or the best tasting recipe. But this is how we like it. If you want a quick fix of Singapore Chilli crab or prawns or squids at home, this is a quick and easy recipe to get your hands on.

Singapore Chilli Prawns Recipe

Ingredients:

20 large king prawns, shelled, deveined, scored on back
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp chopped ginger
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 chilli, seed removed and finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 tbsp Tomato sauce (I use Heinz Tomato Ketcup)
2 tbsp Maggi Sweet Chilli Sauce
Juice of 1/2 lime
2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp cornflour

Method:

1. Mix tomato sauce, sweet chili sauce, water, lime juice and corn flour in a bowl.
2. Add 1 tbsp oil in a wok or pan, fry garlic, ginger, chilli and onion until fragrant.
3. add prawn and give it a good stir.
4. Add the sauce mixture and bring it to a boil.
5. Quickly stir in lightly beaten egg and continue stirring until egg is well mixed and cooked, about 1 minute.
6. Remove and serve immediately with steamed rice.
7. Mop the leftover sauce from the plate with soft white bread.

Note: If you are interested in Lucas Parson's Chilli Mud Crab recipe. Someone from the MasterChef forum has managed to get his actual recipe from his wife (Apparently his recipe printed on Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper is incorrect). Here is the recipe:

Lucas Parson's Singapore Chilli Mud Crab Recipe

Ingredients:

1 Cooked Mud Crab
Salt, coriander leaves and lime wedges to serve

Chilli Base:
2-2.5 fresh small red chillies, coarsely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
10g piece of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
¼ cup peanut oil

Chilli Sauce:
300ml canned tomato paste
30g coarsely grated palm sugar dissolved in 75ml warm water
Juice of 2 limes
¼ cup tomato sauce
¾-1 tbsp black bean sauce

Method

1. For chilli base, place chilli, garlic and ginger in a mortar and, using a pestle, pound to a paste, then add ¾ -1 tbsp peanut oil and combine well.
2. For chilli sauce, place ingredients in a bowl and stir until well combined.
3. Prepare crabs by lifting tail flap, then, using fingers, ease off the back shell. Remove and discard the gills, liver and brain matter and rinse crab well and, using a cleaver or heavy knife, cut crab into 6 pieces. Heat remaining peanut oil in a wok until hot and smoking, add crab and cook for 30 seconds, stirring continuously, add chilli base and stir for 30 seconds, then add chilli sauce and cook for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. To serve, arrange crab in a large bowl, then pour over sauce scatter with coriander leaves and serve with lime wedges.

I will give this recipe a try soon although I am very sceptical about the awful lot of 300ml tomato paste! p/s where is the egg???