Raadhika Dosa's Spicy-Sour Mangalorean Crab Curry
This recipe is part of the series The Recipe I Mastered This Year.
Crab curry has been one of those family things in our home. My mother is Mangalorean Catholic and my father a Kutchi Bhatia from Bombay with decidedly hippie leanings! I grew up in Goa before moving back to Bombay, for school. Seafood forms an integral part of our culinary heritage.
As a child, I remember sitting on the floor with my brother as our mother fed us a huge thaali of steaming rice and fragrant, spicy coconut curry. With each morsel, she would include generous portions of the snow-white crab meat. Even today, when sea crabs are available in the market, lunch is a much-celebrated drawn-out affair. I never really learned to make crab curry since mom usually makes it in our household, but recently as she’s moved away to live with my brother, it has fallen on me to continue this tradition. It’s taken me a few tries and several phone calls to perfect it.
Cleaning crabs
Choose crabs that are heavier. If they are particularly large, you will need separate the claws and legs and halve the crab.
Wash carefully and drain. Keep any roe intact.
Do not smash the crabs.
Cooking crabs
Bring a large pot of water to the boil — enough water that the crabs will be fully submerged. Add a generous pinch of turmeric and some salt.
When the water comes to a rolling boil, throw in all the crab and wait for it to change colour; not more than 5-6 minutes. Turn off the heat and take the pot off the hob.
Do not drain, the crab stock is great for making curry.
Recipe: Raadhika Dosa’s Crab Curry
Ingredients
1 kg crab
2 medium onions, finely sliced
2 inch piece ginger
4 medium onions, ground to a paste
Lime-size ball of tamarind, deseeded and soaked in ¼ cup hot water and strained
¼ cup thin coconut milk
1 cup thick coconut milk
4-6 tbs coconut oil
3 sprigs curry leaves
1 tsp turmeric
Salt to taste
Spices to dry roast
2 tsp cumin seeds
6 tsp mustard seeds
8 tsp coriander seeds, roasted
15 garlic cloves with skin
12-15 peppercorns
10-15 Kashmiri chillies
10-15 byadgi or red chillies
Method
Dry-roast the spices in a wide pan or on a tava and grind into a paste with the ginger, onion paste and the thin coconut milk.
Heat the coconut oil in a kadai.
Add the curry leaves and when fragrant, add the turmeric, followed by the sliced onions.
Sauté for a minute, and add the ground masala to this. Continue sautéing on a low flame until the oil starts separating from the sides.
Next, add the crab stock or boiling water and let the curry thicken. Add salt and tamarind water to taste.
Add the thick coconut milk last, and as the curry comes to a boil, add the cooked crabs and heat gently before serving immediately with hot rice.
Banner image by Aromatic Flavours
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