Spicy Chilli Crab

Chilli Crab

Sometimes on a long weekend, my friends and I like to get together, chill out and organize a cook out. A few weekends ago, we got together and organized a home cooked feast with crab, fish and all. After agreeing to get together, we started off with a shopping list and then early one fine morning, two of us made a trip to the Asian supermarket in Surrey to buy the Dungeness crabs, fish fillet and vegetables.

We got the supermarket's fish monger to clean the crabs for us as this would safe us time. Once we have all the main components of the different cuisines ready. I started off with preparing the spices and vegetables for the gravy and the sauces.

Spicy Chilli Crab Cuisine

The first cuisine in the list was the Chilli Crab which I actually started from scratch. I blended the onions (5 bulbs), garlic (2 cloves), fresh red chillies (five peeled) and a spoon of preserved soy bean curd to make the paste for the chilli crab. The paste was then put into a large pot to simmer with five spoons of cooking oil. I added some lime leaves into the pot and continue to stir. After about a minute, added two spoons of sugar, a pinch of salt and five spoons of tomato ketchup into the paste. All of these are to be mixed together in the pot, allow to simmer and then, add two cups of water and a mixture of corn starch to thicken the gravy slightly. After that, wait until the gravy starts boiling to add the cut pineapple (one small canned). And finally, add the crab into the pot. Once the crab was cooked, pour in two eggs (beaten) into the gravy and stir. Only then, the Spicy Chilli Crab is ready to be served.

Steam Fish Fillet with Oyster Sauce

The next cuisine on the list was the steamed fish which we were using the basa fish fillet. I placed two slices of the fish fillet in a steel plater and garnish with oyster flavoured sauce (two spoons) and sesame seed oil (two spoons). Then put the plater in a steamer. Once the fish was cooked, I took the plater out from the steamer and garnished with spring onions, fried garlic strips and cilantro. This steam fish cuisine is simple, flavourful and tasty in spite of the simple preparation process. So, even though simple as it seem, it is also a popular restaurant cuisine and most Chinese restaurants will have this steam fish cuisine on their menu.

Enoki Mushroom Fritters

The next cuisine I have on the list was the enoki mushroom fritters. This was not a common cuisine but also rather easy to prepare. All that was needed was rice flour (300g), some eggs (2x), corn starch (150g), pepper, (a pinch) salt (a pinch) and water (300ml). And of cause two packs of the enoki mushrooms, cleaned and separated. Just put everything together and using a ladle fry one ladle full at a time in a pot of cooking oil. When the enoki fritters turned golden brown transfer them from the cooking pot to the serving plate. I have yet to find this particular enoki recipe, here or Malaysia except in a public market in Singapore. I guess it is unique.

Braise Duck

And, I last on the list was a special request cuisine for one of the friends that wanted to make use of the duck he has been keeping in his refrigerator for quite awhile. So, I called my mom for a recipe and she taught me the braise duck cuisine. I used five spice, lots of slice ginger, a few spoons of dark soy sauce and at least half a bottle of sweet rice vinegar and a few spoons of Chinese cooking wine. I put everything into the pot and have it cook for about three hours on slow heat. Checking and adding water whenever necessary. As expected, it turned out really flavourful and tasty.