A Crabby Day

I woke up yesterday (Sunday) with mild to high fever. I Felt like a ton of bricks fell on my head and my throat felt like sand paper rubbing against each other. Swallowing felt like a feat, it had to be slow and not too sudden otherwise it would rip apart and I would be a likely candidate for a Columbian neck tie. I wasn't a happy camper.

My wife was kind enough to leave me for dead in bed and she left me a plate of noodles and some coffee for me to crawl my way to it. As I sat up on bed my head started throbbing. I was a little hesitant to have any food but as I rummaged the fridge I found some paracetamols and it should be taken after a meal. Great. It was like insult to injury. So I forcefully ate the plate of noodles and gulp down drugs with some coffee. In my drowsy state of mind I managed to channel surf and landed on the Asian Food Channel (AFC). It was a documentary on Chili Crab in Singapore.

I could practically smell the crabs being cooked on telly. I kid you not! Apparently the best crabs for this dish are the Sri Lankan crabs. Their shells are less thick and which means pound for pound you get more meat from a Sri Lankan crab compared to an Australian crab. * A Malaysian Mud Crab
However most crab afficionados would agree that since the crab is going to be fried and soaked in chili sauce there isn't much difference to the type of crab used for this dish. So any mud crab would do. Here's a recipe for Chili crab:

Ingredients :
2 1/2 cup 1/4 cup 1 medium 5 cm 4 cloves 5 2 cups 1 cup 2 tablespoons 2 tablespoons 1 tablespoon 2 tablespoons	Fresh crabs approximately 500 g each Plain flour Cooking oil Finely chopped onion Fresh ginger finely grated Finely chopped garlic Red chilies, finely chopped Bottled tomato pasta sauce Water Soy sauce Sweet chili sauce Rice vinegar Soft brown sugar
Method : Wash the crabs well and scrub the shell. Using a large cleaver, cut the crabs in half and rinse well under cold water, carefully removing the yellow gills or spongy parts. Hit the legs and larger front nippers with the flat side of the cleaver to crack the shell. This is to make the eating process easier. Lightly and carefully coat the shells with a little flour. Heat about 2 tablespoons cooking oil in a large wok and cook 1 1/2 crab at a time, carefully turning and holding the crab in the hot oil until the shell just turns red. Repeat with the remaining crab halves. Add the remaining oil to the wok and cook the onion, ginger, garlic and chili for 5 minutes over medium heat and stirring regularly. Add the tomato sauce, water, soy sauce, chili sauce, vinegar and sugar. Bring to boil and cook for 15 minutes. Return the crab to the wok and simmer, turning carefully in the sauce for 10 minutes or until the crab meat turns white. Do not overcook. Serve with steamed rice.

* Source

After the show ended I was back at being miserable and slept half the day away until I couldn't take the pain in my throat and drove to a nearby pharmacy for some medicine. Today the fever has dissipated but my throat still feels sore.

Here's another link to the chili crab recipe.