Singaporean Cuisine

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Cuisine Category
Singaporean

TV Show
Food Safari

Special Consideration
Easy

Food Category
Seafood

Chilli crab

Cuisine: Singaporean Created by Alex Lee

Alex Lee shares his popular Singapore chilli crab recipe with Food Safari's Maeve O'Meara.

For tasty variations on chilli crab, try Italian chef Alessandro Pavoni's crab recipe, or Vietnamese chef Luke Nguyen's crab recipe. Also, browse our seafood recipes for more gourmet inspiration.

Ingredients

Mud crab, well washed and chopped into sections
2 brown onions, peeled and roughly chopped
8 red chillies
Belacan, thumb size piece
½ tbsp vinegar
6 tbsp oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
400ml tomato puree
4 tbsp light soy sauce
½ tsp salt
4 tbsp sugar
Water
¼ tsp corn or potato starch, mixed in ½ cup of water
1 egg
Coriander leaves, to garnish

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Preparation

Blend onions and chillies in a food processor for 30 seconds.

Heat oil in a wok and add onion and chilli paste.

Add belacan and continue to cook until most of the liquid from the onions evaporates.

Add vinegar, tomato puree, tomato paste, sugar and salt.

Add tomato sauce, starch and light soy sauce.

Add crab pieces and continue to cook over high heat until shell turns red.

Add starch.

Add egg and stir through gently.

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.

Singaporean Restaurants

Displaying 10 of 42 Singaporean Restaurants.

Restaurant		Suburb
1.	Harry's Singapore Chilli Crab	Sydney
2.	Temasek	Parramatta
3.	The Old Raffles Place	Collingwood
4.	Singapore China Town Restaurant	Northbridge
5.	Bismi's Gold an Fork	Melbourne
6.	Ginger & Spice	Neutral Bay
7.	Gingerboy	Melbourne
8.	Katong Singaporean Restaurant	City Beach
9.	Suria Cafe	Girrawheen
10.	Raffles Room at Steventon Lodge	Tea Tree Gully

21 May 2012 11:12 AEST

Sundrop2204

WPH

Getting the authentic recipe

Hi Angelyn, I can't help but agree with you. Everytime a recipe "travels" outside of its country, it does get "watered down" quite a bit, much to my disappointment. And I'm not trying to be hoity or "self-important" about it. Its the reality of the situation. Only Singaporeans will understand this. Ange, may I have the true blue recipe for this please??!! Thanks!!

15 May 2012 11:24 AEST

Paul Hanson

Geelong

Good & easy to make

I tried this with 4 chilis & it was just nicely "warm" I will be more courageous & try it with more chilis next time!

12 Mar 2012 07:24 AEST

Phil

Redondo Beach

Add some...

To add a little "something" I include, 1 stalk of Lemon grass, thumb size piece of ginger, and two cloves of garlic to the onion puree. Also don't be afraid to fry it off till a little darker in colour. A great dish no matter how it's done!

03 Mar 2012 10:59 AEST

Don

Singapore

Use Fingers!

Whatever you do, don't forget to use your fingers when you devour your chili crabs. It has to be fingers, or the "oomph" factor will not be there! Trust me, I'm Singaporean.

20 Jan 2012 07:13 AEST

charles

cowra

harrys is best

have enjoyed harrys for over 30yrs first at eastlakes then in sydney city harry is from johore across the causway from singapore try his food next

02 Jan 2012 09:29 AEST

Who Cares too

Melbourne

Yum

I agree with Who Cares? that what is important is that the flavour is a knockout. Every man and his dog would say theirs is the ONLY way to cook a dish, but I am willing to give any version of this recipe a taste!! I think some people just get too hoity and self-important about the way to cook a reciipe. And to Nicole I can only say, that using blue swimmer crabs would do me too:)

29 Jul 2011 05:00 AEST

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24 Jun 2011 08:49 AEST

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13 Jun 2011 10:29 AEST

Ange

Shellharbour

Everyone is a critic

It is very Asian to criticise someone else's cooking, starting from mother-in-law then to the mother. Free world out there, you can say whatever you like but Alex had the gut to go on TV and share his version with everyone. Nothing precious about a recipy, individual taste means one can chop and change to suit one's taste. Angelyn, your pride is wounded that it is not your version, then come out with your version, don't take it too personally though. I'll try to be POSITIVE when I comment on

07 Jun 2011 12:02 AEST

george

doncaster

singapore chilli crab

A total misnomer ! It should have been called tomato crab, but it has been bastardised for the non-Asians ! That is why non of the Thai and Indian restaurants in Aust are any good.

15 Apr 2011 04:04 AEST

Who cares?

Melbourne

Leave it alone

Why be so snobbish about a recipe? 'Up to standard'? I've eaten this dish so many times, including a couple of dozen times in Singapore. Every family/vendor/restaurant has the 'authentic' version - they're all different! What's it matter as long as it tastes yum? Alex says you can up the chilli. This recipe sounds as 'Singapore' as any version I've eaten, seems if it's got; crab, chilli and tomato sauce then that's about as far as the consistency goes.

28 Mar 2011 05:35 AEST

Araym

oxley

Singapore Chilli Crab

Angelyn Chan please provide your receipe of singapore style what is missing

18 Mar 2011 10:00 AEST

Nicole

Landsdale

All time favorite

I repeatedly make this chilli crab recipe, every time I can get out and catch some crabs. I tend to use blue manna (swimmers) instead of mud crab and it is still absolutely delicious.

28 Feb 2011 01:33 AEST

tim dingle

lynbrook vic

chilly crab

I want sum now !!!!!!!!! loks great

24 Jul 2010 02:18 AEST

Ben

North Sydney

A touch of class

I've tried this recipe and it is just so good. Most of the time you don't get great end results from recipes. These steps are easy to follow. Salute to the chef and we will be visiting your restaurant soon.

30 Mar 2010 03:52 AEST

Angelyn Chan

Singapore

Singapore Chilli Crab

The real Singapore Chilli Crab is such a national iconic dish but this recipe does not justify or qualify to call itself "Singapore Chiili Crab" more like just "Chilli crab" only. From a Singaporean point of view, it's not up to standard. Seems like its being adjusted for caucasian taste.

07 Mar 2010 10:18 AEST

KST

Bondi

Doubling the quantities

Hello, would anyone be able to tell me if doubling the quantities for 2 mud crabs works alright with this recipe. I am actually looking to cook 6-8 crabs for a dinner party and am wondering how about I should go about with multiples of measurements. Any help would be deeply appreciated. Thank you very much.

06 Mar 2010 06:17 AEST

Ismael

Chattanooga , TN

Washing and scrubbing..

Scrubbing and cleaning is done to clean the crab because these are mud crabs and some mud are present sometimes. They usually cut the crabs while still alive and washes the shell afterward before cooking. I learned cooking this recipe while I was in Singapore for about 10 years.

25 Feb 2010 10:00 AEST

Michael G

Annandale

Chopping and Scrubbing the Crab?

I'm looking forward to making this but just wanted to know if anyone could elaborate a bit more on the chopping and scrubbing of the crab? Many thanks!

11 Jan 2010 04:38 AEST

Naomi

St Leonards, VIC

YUM!

This was most wonderful and I made it with sand crabs (best crabs at the market that day). We could have been sitting in Newton Circus having this! By the way, 2 Tablespoons of tomato sauce was the recipe in the book but then I changed the chillies to a green one and a couple of red chillis - still tasted authentic to us.

05 Jan 2010 11:33 AEST

TAC

Bardwell Valley

Tomato sauce

Agree, the recipe is very yummy. Used about half a cup of tomato sauce and that seemed to work quite well. Found that reducing the number of chilli's to about 4 made the sauce tastier.

03 Jun 2009 10:55 AEST

Robert Naumann

Mermaid waters

Tomato sauce

I just noticed that the recipe ingredients do not include the 'Tomato Sauce' that was added in the video. Do you know how much tomato sauce was added?

21 Oct 2008 07:24 AEST

Robert Naumann

Mermaid Waters

Chilli Crab

I must have at least 2 dozen recipe variations of 'Singaporean Chilli Crab' and this one is way up there with the best of them. Surprised at the absence of curry leaves though, but the end product didn't suffer at all.

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