Roland’s Restaurant Address Blk 89 Marine Parade Central 06-750 Opening Hours 11.30am-2.30pm/ 6pm-10.30pm daily Telephone 6440 8205

Dragon Phoenix Restaurant Address 177A River Valley Road Level 6, Novotel Clarke Quay Opening Hours 11pm-3pm/6pm-11pm (Mon to Sat) 8am-4pm/ 6pm-11pm (Sun and PH) Telephone 6238 0110

There are aplenty chilli crab recipes and I’ve enjoyed the good, endured the bad and encountered the so-so ones.

The story about how chili crabs evolved started from a lady who sold seafood by the seaside at Upper East Coast Rd more than half a century ago. Customers to her then little Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant were jaded of the ways she and her husband cooked seafood, especially crabs. No matter how they grilled, boiled, bbq-ed, steamed, fried and baked, they could not resuscitate the regular customer’s flagging interest.

Upon some suggestions from her regular Peranakan spice loving customers from Katong, Mdm Cher Yam Tian came up with what is now one of our favourite national dish. She steamed a chopped up fresh crab and tossed it in chilli and tomato sauce with a hint of stock and flavour. The rest is Chilli Crab history. It was simplicity at its divine best. In her mid 70s today, she still dishes out this original recipe at he son’s Roland’s Restaurant in Marine Parade.

But not long after, Mr Hooi Kok Wai and his team at the Dragon Phoenix Restaurant upgraded it with version 1.1. and juiced up the sauce with chilli sambal, tomato sauce, stock, a hint of vinegar, eggs, onions and spring onions. That was stuff culinary legends are made of. It was robust and beckoned attention. Overnight, every decent seafood restaurant had it in their menu.

Both the makan mavericks are still alive, kicking cooking today.

Of course there are wannabe versions from lesser cooks that looked bright red and tasted neither piquant with vinegar, spicy with chilli, tangy with tomatoes nor smooth with eggs. It tasted painful. The vinegar scratched me, the chilli stung, the eggs hardened it, the crab meat stuck to the shells and the bill was high.

Just painful!

I kaypoh a lot in the course of my makan voyeurism work and I chanced upon a version from an old seafood master chef and improvised on it. It had some advise from an Italian chef who’s been here long enough to know that his Singlish is as good as mine and an Indian pal, whose mother doles out superb masala crabs.

Ingredients (for three greedy foodies)
- 15 medium sized tomatoes(fresh, of course lah!)
- one teacup of chicken or seafood stock (can cheat by using stock cubes that doesn’t contain MSG)
- two meat crabs or roe crabs. About 800gms to 1kg each(alive, fresh and kicking, please)
- three teaspoonful of chilli paste (ask for dried chilli kering at your favourite spice stall at Tekka Market)
- one teaspoon of seafood masala spice (from Tekka too)
- four teaspoons of coconut milk (the thick versions from packs will do)
- two big onions, cut into rings
- two eggs, beaten
- two sprigs of spring onions, chopped
- fresh red chilli, score lengthwise and de-seed, for presentation

Method:
- cut crabs and steam it for 15 minutes, meanwhile
- score the tomatoes and boil it for 10 mins, remove, cool and skin it
- blend the skin-less tomatoes till it still has some rough bits to it, set aside
- now fry some chopped garlic, onions with oil till fragrant, and immediately
- add three spoons of chili paste and fry till fragrance permeate
- pour the tomato sauce and stock in
- now add the steamed crabs, masala spices and coconut milk and toss for 1.5mins
- salt and sugar to taste (very little or none needed)
- spread the beaten eggs over and quickly stir for 10 secs
- bless it with chopped spring onions and serve with cut chilli flower topping (optional)

Eat and enjoy it with roti to dip, and a good Chardonnay!