Black Pepper Crab

I usually make curries out of crab and wanted to try something different and thought of Black Pepper Crab and found one at http://www.rasamalaysia.com/  The recipe calls for mud crab, instead I use sea crab and being a fan of dried prawns I had use a handful and did not ground them, I just gave a few knocks with a pestle just to loosen the dried prawns.

Black Pepper Crab
Ingredients

1 kg crabs
oil for deep frying
2 tbs of butter
2 shallots - finely sliced
2 garlic - chopped finely
1 tbs of salted black beans - mashed (I did not add this)
2 tbs of dried prawns - roasted and ground
2 tbs of black pepper - coarsely ground (I use ready made ones)
1/2 cup of curry leaves
10 bird's eye-chillies, red or green (I used red ones and real fiery ones)
2 tbs of soya sauce
3 tbs of sugar
2 tbs of oyster sauce

Method


Clean the crabs, half them, give a slight knock to the claws.  Heat oil ( I did not deep fry like it was suggested- I use oil just nice to cover and fry them).  Fry the crab about 3/4 cooked. 


In a different wok, heat butter and saute shallots, garlic, black beans, dried prawns, black pepper, curry leaves and chopped chillies.

Saute till aromatic, add crab and the rest of seasoning and stir till mix well.  Cook for a few more minutes till the crabs are done.  Serve