Crab curry, the Senrab Street way.

Crabs can be tricky business, as we found out a couple of weeks ago - the amount of slaughtering and cleaning involved turned everything into quite the operation. However, being such seafood lovers and with the anticipation of the dearly missed crab curry (it's not exactly something you can get easily in London), we quite willingly got our hands dirty.

Armed with a base recipe (once again provided by mum and dad), the girls set out to get the paste right while the boys (literally) tackled the crab.

With the resident strong-man in the house, the crabs didn't stand a chance.

Ingredients:

2-3 kg crabs, cleaned and cracked
tomato puree
chilli sauce
soy sauce
2 eggs
salt and sugar to taste

Paste:
30 gm (1 small packet) of curry powder
6 cloves of garlic
20 shallots
2 cm in length piece of ginger
2 teaspoons tumeric powder
2-3 tablespoons tamarind juice
chilli powder

Blend all of the paste ingredients until it achieves a nice consistency.
Heat oil in a deep wok and stir fry the paste until fragrant.
Add crabs to the paste and mix well, adding water so that they just cover the tops of the crabs. Cover the wok and let the fire work its magic.
When the curry starts bubbling, add tomato puree, chilli sauce and soy sauce. I would suggest adding a bit at a time, tasting at intervals so that you get the balance that you want.
Reduce the heat, cover the wok and allow to cook for a further 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
The gravy should thicken nicely but for that added thickness, break 2 eggs into the gravy and mix well.


We decided to add the tomato puree and chilli sauce to give it the sweet, tangy flavour that chilli-crab dishes have, making the curry more of a sweet chilli-curry hybrid. Deep fry some mantou buns and you've got a finger-licking good combination. Like most curries, this curry tastes even better the next day as the sweet flavours of the fresh crab would have really made its way into the gravy.