A luxurious snack for any time of the day – the egg is crisp on the outside and silky on the inside, and the crab meat is the ultimate accompaniment. You could make this dish even better by using duck eggs.

Kill the crab quickly and humanely by turning it onto its back and inserting a large metal skewer in its middle where the fl aps meet. Leave the skewer inside the crab for 3–4 minutes or until the crab has died. Alternatively, place the crab in a freezer for 1 hour, which will send it to sleep.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Calculate the cooking time for the crab – allow 15 minutes per kilogram of whole crab. (On this basis, a 500 g/1 lb blue swimmer crab will need to be cooked for 7–8 minutes.) Add the crab to the pot and simmer for the correct time. The shell of the mud crab will turn a reddish brown when cooked. Remove the crab from the pot and shock it in a sink of iced water to stop the cooking process. Leave the crab to cool in the sink for 10 minutes, then drain.

Use your fi ngers to pull the top shell away from the body. Discard the gills and rinse the crab. Twist off the legs and claws and use a mallet or the fl at side of the cleaver to crack them. Use a crab pick or metal skewer to extract the meat from the legs, claws and body. Weigh 150 g (5 oz) of meat and refrigerate or freeze the rest for another use.

Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan to 180°C (350°F). Crack an egg into a ladle or small bowl and slide it into the oil. Quickly repeat with two more eggs. Gently shake the pan to settle the eggs into the oil (there should be enough oil to just cover the eggs). Use a metal spoon to ladle the hot oil over the eggs so the tops cook as well. When the eggs become crisp on the outside but are still soft in the middle (around 3 minutes), sprinkle each one with a little crab meat, lup cheong, chilli and spring onion (the toppings should balance on top). Fry until the topping has warmed through then carefully remove the eggs from the oil with a slotted spoon. Drain any excess oil and place on a warm serving dish while you fry the remaining eggs.

Sprinkle the eggs with oyster sauce, coriander, fried shallots and prickly ash and serve immediately.


Recipe from Lotus: Asian Flavours by Teage Ezard with photographs by Greg Elms. Published by Hardie Grant Books.