-It's all about the experience
of eating this chili crab,
and if your mouth burning,
your hands, like,
touching the wrong parts
of your face,
you will remember it.
It should hit the spot.
My name is Salil Mehta.
I'm from Laut Singapura,
and we'll be making
chili crab today.
Chili crab is the national
dish of Singapore
and also happens to be
one of my favorite dishes.
We'll start with
the aromatics first.
So we need shallot.
Singapore food, I believe
the holy trinity
would be shallot, garlic,
and this guy
right here, belacan.
Shrimp paste
makes everything better.
It just adds, like, a nice layer
of umami to your dish.
Singapore food is --
It's really interesting
because it's in the middle
of, like,
all these different
trade routes,
so many different Southeast
Asian cultures coming together.
The Indian mixing
with the Malay.
You have the Chinese
mixing with the Malay.
Chinese and the Indians,
curry powder
and all these
different ingredients
going into certain dishes that
you wouldn't see it go into,
food just being created
to satisfy
all these different cultures.
I don't think it happens
anywhere else in the world.
We're using chili sauce.
We're using fresh chili.
We're using dry chili.
If you feel like you don't
want it to be this spicy,
reduce the amount of chilies
that you want.
We're just going to soak
some dried chilies.
The smaller ones
are usually spicier,
so I think
that should do it for us.
This right here
is fermented soybean.
You don't want too much of it.
Any kind of seafood,
you could do with that sauce.
If you don't eat crab,
you can do it with lobster.
You could even do it
with shrimp.
This is known as rempah,
basically all the blended
ingredients together.
I think Malay and Singaporean
cuisine,
there's always a rempah
in the dish.
I don't know if I'm feeling
emotional with the shallots,
or I'm --
if I'm feeling emotional
with cooking this crab
for you guys today.
So we're good with this.
So in Singapore,
you would eat it
with a Sri Lankan mud crab,
which are impossible
to source over here.
I think these Vancouver crabs
are the next best thing, like,
the ideal crab to cook it with,
so we're just going to
get rid of the tail.
All this stuff, no good.
The golden stuff, you keep.
Get rid of all these sharps.
So we're just quartering
the crabs over here.
Here, I'm just cracking it
so that when we cook the rempah
and the sauce and everything,
all that can penetrate
inside the meat.
In terms of flavor,
I think it captures Singapore.
It's sweet. It's spicy.
It's slightly sour.
It has a lot of personality
to it.
Where else would you see
all these different ingredients
coming together under one plate,
and it kind of represents
what Singapore people are,
you know?
It's a mix of everything.
This is the soul
of Singaporean cuisine.
It comes in a, like, little cake
like this.
A little goes a long way.
Don't let the smell scare
you away.
So now we're just toasting
the belacan in here,
so at this stage,
you'll smell the belacan,
so once you start smelling it,
we'll put in the rempah.
Don't waste any of it.
We're going to put water
in there later
and then get everything out.
So we're going to slow-cook
this for a while.
So at this point, you see
the color has changed.
We'll put in the tomato sauce
in there.
I'm going to eyeball it.
So everything in this cuisine
is aga aga,
means, like, approximation.
If you ask any Peranakan lady
or old lady from Malaysia,
Singapore like,
"How much of this?
How much of this?"
"Aga aga, aga aga.
Okay, love, you know,
you just see, this much."
They never tell you
the exact portion because,
you know, you're working
with dynamic ingredients,
so sometimes, your chili
might not be as spicy
as the last time you used it.
Your ginger may not be
as fragrant,
so everything is aga aga
in this cooking.
This is your sweet chili.
I'm from New Delhi, so there are
no Malaysian restaurants
where I come from.
There's no Singapore
restaurants.
Chinese food is very different
in India.
My wife is half Chinese.
Her family would take me
to a Chinatown
and everything and introduce me
to, like, real Chinese food.
I think the flavors are, like,
very similar
to what we would eat back home.
We're going to introduce
the crab in there,
just let it soak it soak up
all the juices of the rempah.
You're making your own seafood
stock with the shell in there.
The reason why I haven't
added vinegar yet
because I'm just trying
to understand
the sourness of the tomatoes
and the sauce together.
How sour you want it, you can
kind of adjust it to that.
We're going to add some water
in there,
and the shell will lend
all its flavor to the sauce.
That's about a cup,
cup and a half,
and that's when you can
raise up the heat.
I'm going to prep the mantou,
which is the steamed bun.
Definitely cut the bun
before steaming it.
You know, in Singapore,
they would give you an option
of either
steaming it for frying it.
This dish in itself
is super rich.
I prefer steaming it.
At this point, you see it
kind of coming together.
Once the crab has changed
its color to, like,
a nice bright orange-red,
pretty much know it's done.
You don't want to overcook
your crab either.
So we're just getting
the garnishing ready,
simple,
just scallion and cilantro.
So you're not going to use this
in the garnish,
but do not throw away
your stems of the cilantro.
It's where all your flavor is.
Add a touch of sugar in here.
See, at this point,
I just want the sauce to
thicken up a little bit.
Later, we're going to throw
an egg in there,
and it gives you, like,
that nice velvety texture.
Just using some vinegar
to sour it up a little bit more.
You should just try to achieve
your own balance of sour,
sweet, and spicy, and you want
this nice, beautiful color too.
I like to plate the crab first
and then put the egg
in the sauce.
It should be, like,
not too runny,
but not too thick either.
And drop the sauce on top.
It just makes it look prettier.
Just drop some scallions.
And there you have it,
your Singapore chili crab.
So get your hands dirty
with this dish.
I usually just start
with the good stuff up here
and then,
you know, like,
I usually fight my significant
other for the claw,
but she's not here right now,
so I can pretty much go
for the roe,
and I can have the claw.
It's sour. It's spicy.
There's a lot of
different influences.
There is an Indian influence.
There is a Chinese influence.
There's local Java, so you have
all these different cultures
coming together and making
something beautiful like this.
For the recipe,
click the link below. Enjoy.
♪♪
Chinese style with ginger,
scallion.
As an Indian person,
it doesn't satisfy my palate.
You know, like, any time we go
to any Asian restaurant,
they just put hot sauce
on my table.
I don't even have to ask for it.
It's sour. It's spicy.
There's a lot of
different influences.
There is an Indian influence.
There is a Chinese influence.
There's local Java, so you have
all these different cultures
together and making something
beautiful like this.
For the recipe,
click the link below. Enjoy.
