so I made Salted Egg Crabs

I could never understand the reason for people wanting to eat crabs ... there so little meat and so many hard shells to crack. It was until that day when I had Salted Egg Crabs and I understood why it's worthwhile to crack, suck and dig for crab meat ... the salted egg sauce combo with crab meat (and shell) is simply heavenly.

I been wanting to try to try to do a crabs dish and today happened to be the day where my folks and I head down to Tiong Baru wet market to chop prawns for the Reunion Lunch Pot Luck. Yes I'm making Wasabi Prawns again.

so Two Birds with One Stone ...

First of all, I didn't realize Salted Eggs come in Black .... I even asked the Ah Ma serving me if she got the right ones cos there are some brown ones by the side ... it turned out that the brown ones are Century Eggs (kinda Ironic isn't it?)

And the Black ones are actually White Salted Eggs

I was even more surprised that the Salted Eggs were still in liquid form ... not the harden ones we get when we buy porridge ... it's just like normal eggs except the egg yolks are a bit more harden ... I wonder what's inside the Century Eggs.

anyway ... had to steam the Salted Egg Yolks first. Then start work on the Crabs!!

My Friend asked ... so who washed the Crabs? Was it my Mom?

Anyway, it wasn't ... it was the Crabs seller ... had to ask him to kill & wash the Crabs for us as we really don't know how to. I used to stop my Grandma from killing and cleaning the crabs until I had to be locked in a toilet with my parents holding the doors. Now I regret not learning how to do it.

But it's still a rather cruel sight to see how the crabs are being dismantled ... Haiz ... I wonder if I will ever be able to do it. Anyway I told the Crab Seller that I was going to make Salted Egg Crabs and he just shaked his head and ask me "nice meh?" ... He must be thinking this punk is goign to waste his crabs



anyway, I coated the crabs with Corn Flour ... at that point, my Dad came in and mention that I should have added Egg White to make the flour stick to the crabs. It was too late and the recipe didn't state that so I quietly ignore him.


After which, pour them into hot oil for some deep frying session.



This is the tricky bit ... I wasn't sure how long should I fry the crabs. I been told that I shouldn't cook too long as they are easily cook. However at this point, my Dad came in and mention that the shells had not been cracked and it might not get cook that easily ...

as again, the recipe didn't mention anything about cracking the crabs shell and it was way too late to do anything ... so I quietly ignored him again ...

Had to rely on my "cooking sense" and agar agar (estimate) the frying. Overall, it went quite well until one of the Claws screamed during the frying!

I kid you not!

It was like those horror movie where what you thought was dead wasn't! the Claw kept screaming and screaming ... I was so tempted to tell it that "if you keep screaming, I am not going to pick you up from the boiling hot oil" but I wise up and suspect that there must be a space inside the Claw and it might be leaking air out so therefore it was screaming ...

there there .. don't be afraid to fry Crabs after listening to my experience.

My assumption was more or less proven correct when one of the later crab claw actually exploded. Yeah Exploded! Lucky it shot at the wall instead of me ... or I would really freak out. Think Revenge of the Undead Crabs !!



After the Crabs had been cooked, drain and dry the excess oils from them ... while moving on to frying the Salted Egg Sauce

Minced the Steamed Salted Eggs ... fry the minced garlic and add in the salted Egg. Once they blend together and emit a nice food smell. It's time to add those crabs and the seasoning in.

and Fry them together!

at that point, my Mom came in and said that my cooking style looked like a professional Chef. Even stated that if I leave my current job, I could try cooking as a career.

... cold joke aside, the frying was rather difficult as the crabs are still in large pieces ... which meant my Dad was right but as again, too late and maybe it might have been better mixing the salted egg with the seasoning first before adding the crabs (which the recipe didn't state it in that way)
The Finished Product!

Personally, I wasn't that impressed with the Salted Egg sauce. I didn't blend it that well and it wasn't as yummy or memorable as the first Salted Egg Crabs dish that I had.

But My Mom said it was good ... as good as the restaurant one (you know la, Moms tend to overstate things). She also mention that the crab meat was just nicely cooked and tasted pretty good ... which I agreed.

It was quite a new experience but now I am so tired and still have so many plates to wash !!! Not sure when will I ever do this again ... unless there are willing victims who dare to leave his or her name in the comments box.

Before I end this post, this dish wouldn't be possible without the recipe from this blog ... so go check it out if you would like to attempt this dish.