Singaporean Chili Crab Recipe

You can't visit Singapore without rolling up your sleeves and diving into a plate of iconic chili crab, Singapore's unofficial national dish. Crabs are served in a huge puddle of tomato sauce that's sweet, spicy, tangy, and often thickened with egg. Though the shells have been pre-smashed, you've got to dig in and use whatever tool you can find, like chopsticks or fingers (tiny forks are not handed out here) to suck out every morsel of succulent, sweet crab. Bibs? I've never seen one. This is not a first date kind of a dish.

Chili crab was created in Singapore in the 1950s by Cher Yam Tian. After experimenting in her kitchen for family and friends, her crabs became a hit, and her family opened their first restaurant, Palm Beach Seafood. Since then, the dish has become a staple on menus across Singapore, from hawker centers to fancy restaurants.

In Singapore, dining out on chili crab can be expensive, and we all know you're never going to get your fill on a meal of crab (except at the awesome Chinese buffets I'd frequent back in upstate New York where I'd stuff my face with snow crab legs). Cooking crab at home is totally the way to go. In Singapore, we use mud crabs from Sri Lanka, but any other crab should work, even soft-shell. Making this dish at home allows you to adjust the sweetness/heat level, and the rich seafood flavor that comes from cooking the crab right in the sauce is unparalleled to any I've had in a restaurant.