Curry Crab by Sandra Holm

Recipe for homemade curry paste for pineapple crab curry, recipe from my Thai grandmother.

Ingredients

A: For spice curry paste
8 fresh red chilies
8 dried red chilies (deseeded and soaked in hot water)
2 lemon grass stalks, chopped into small pieces
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium size onion or 8 small shallots, chopped
20g galangal, chopped
10g fresh turmeric, chopped
1 teaspoon coriander powder / fresh coriander seed
½ teaspoon cumin powder / fresh cumin seed
2 kaffir lime leaves
15g shrimp paste (balancan)
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon salt

B: Ingredients for cooking
4-5 medium side flower crab (clean and cut into half)
3-4 cups coconut milk
Small hand full of fresh cube pineapple (OPTIONAL)
8 Ladyfingers
Small hand full laksa/polygonum leaves (daun kesom)
4 table spoon vegetables oil
Mix 2 table spoons tamarind in a cup of water & squeeze juice out

Method

1. Blend the above spice “A” in a blender /food processor until fine. Scoop out and set aside.
2. Heat up oil in a wok/pot and add all blended spice and continue saute until fragrant, or you can see the oil is reddish in color.

3. Turn the heat down to medium and pour in coconut milk slowly and keep stir & let it boil in a slow heat until coconut milk is a bit thicken ( 5-8 minutes )

4. Add in pineapple cube and crab together and let it simmer slowly in a medium heat with lid on about for 5 minutes, then turn the heat down and continue simmer for another 8 minutes or until crab is cooked. ( keep an eyes on it and stir once in a while as to make sure gravy is not over flows to the cooker due to coconut milk)
5. Steam whole lady fingers in the micro wave for 5 minutes and cut into 2-3 pieces then add into the gravy together with laksa leave for 2 minutes.
6. Add in tamarind juice and extra salt & sugar to your own taste.
7. Ready for serving.

Tip: you may use this curry paste for fish & Prawn and salted fish curry. And you may also cook extra curry paste and cool it down in airtight container and freeze it down, due to time consuming for the whole cooking process “this is what I normally do when I stay in Copenhagen, and I can use it for 2-3months”. And I also used milk & bit of cream, since I can only find can-coconut milk and I dislike it, with milk taste better.

******** Hope you guys will enjoy my granny’s recipe**********