Mack’s mud crab

My dad's famous boiled mud crab with chilli dipping sauce. I've spent years crabbing with my dad and whenever he cooks our catch, he pairs it with this dipping sauce that he crushes in his asanka (Ghanaian wooden bowl and pestle).

Mack’s mud crab Credit: Adam Liaw

• serves

  2

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  30 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

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Ingredients

• 1 kg small raw mud crab (see note)
• seawater for cooking (or salted water)
• 2 tbsp honey (optional)

Dipping sauce

• 3 green kpakpo shito chillies or 1 red birdseye chilli, seeded
• ¼ red onion, very finely diced
• 1 – 2 tomatoes, finely chopped
• olive oil from a small tin of sardines

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of seawater (or salted water as salty as seawater) to the boil. Add the honey if using, then add the whole crab, cover and simmer for 28 minutes. Prepare a large bowl of iced water for plunging the crab into when cooked.
2. Meanwhile, for the dipping sauce, place the chilli, onion and tomatoes in a mortar and pound with a pestle until well mashed, adding a little of the oil from the sardines as you go until it has a good dipping consistency. Keep checking the heat level as you mix.
3. When cooked, take the crab out of the salt water (keep the salt water aside so you can clean crab later) and immediately plunge into the iced water (this arrests the cooking process and prevents the meat from clinging to the shells). Stand until cool, then drain.
4. Once cool, break the crab into 4 pieces, using a little of the reserved sea water to rinse off any shell if needed. Serve with the dipping sauce on the side.

Note

• To choose a good crab, press down hard on the underside of the crab right near the third claw, if it doesn't give way under your finger, then it's full. If it moves, there's not as much meat in there. To dispatch of the crab humanely, place in the freezer for 1 hour to put it to sleep before adding to the pot of boiling water.

Photography by Adam Liaw.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

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