Ingredients
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1 Blue swimmer crab
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½ Red onion diced
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2-3 Garlic cloves roughly chopped
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10 Curry leaves
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4 Bird’s eye chillies roughly chopped
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1 Spring of coriander leaves with the roots
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¼ inch Ginger
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2 tsp Salt
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**Dried Spices**
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2 tsp Coriander seeds
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5-6 black peppercorn
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4-5 dried red chilies
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½ inch Cinnamon Stick
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2 Cardamom Pods
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2 cloves
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1 tsp cumin seeds
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1 tsp fennel seeds
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1 dried bay leaves
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**Curry Paste**
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2 - 3 tbs coconuto oil
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1 tsp fenugreek seeds
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1 tsp mustard seeds
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3-4 dried red chillies
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½ red onion sliced
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2-3 garlic cloves chopped
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1-1 pandan leaf chopped1-inch
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8-10 Curry leaves
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1 cup of water
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1 ¼ cup coconut milk
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25g dark palm sugar grated
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2 tsp tamarind paste or pulp(soaked in hot water prior to making the curry paste)
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**Garnish / Directions - To Serve**
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1 cup steamed rice
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Coriander leaves or fried curry leaves
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Chopped fresh chilies or fried dried red chilies
Directions
Dee’s delicious Crab Curry is the perfect combination of spicy, savoury and sweet. Apron winning dish from MasterChef Australia 2019.
Directions
- Remove the top shell from the body of the crab, in one piece, and wash thoroughly. Remove gills and wash crab bodies thoroughly. Cut each crab into four and gently crack the larger claws with a cleaver. Reserve the headshell, if you would like it for presentation purposes.
- For the curry paste, place the dry spices into a small frying pan and place over low heat. Toast until fragrant, stirring regularly for about 5-6 minutes. Transfer spices to a small bowl to cool slightly.
- Place all the fresh ingredients into the blender along with salt and add all the toasted spices, strain the tamarind juice into the blender, needs about ¼ cup, if it’s not enough add some water and blend until it forms a rough curry paste (takes about 6-8 minutes). Taste and adjust the flavour. If it’s too spicy reduce the number of chillies.
- To make the curry, base add coconut oil into the wok and slowly heat up the oil, once the oil is hot add fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and dried red chillies until it releases the aroma into the oil. Then add onion, garlic, pandan leaf and curry leaves until it’s golden brown and fragrant.
- Then add the curry paste into the onion mixture and fry off the curry paste for about 2- 4 minutes. Wash the blender with ½ cup of water and tip the water onto the curry paste and add 100ml or ¼ cup of coconut milk. Put the lid on and simmer the curry for about 45 minutes on a very lower heat, check every 15 minutes and adjust the flavors. If you require more water add along the way.
- At the end of 30 minutes, add the rest of the 1 cup coconut milk and ½ cup of water and dark palm sugar, put the lid on and simmer for further 15 minutes.
