There are many different ways to cook a crab and the most common three are either baked, steamed or stir fried (炒螃蟹). For the stir fried way, there are many varieties as well, you can choose to stir fried the crab with cheese, black pepper, chilly and many other spices depending on where you go. But my all time favorite is to stir fried the crab with salted egg (咸蛋)!
I first came to know this when I stumbled upon a very modest food court in Singapore. I like the smaller scale of this food court as it is not very crowded compare to other food courts located in shopping malls all across Singapore. And this wonderful dish was sold at a crazily affordable price at the Broadway Food Centre, Sembawang, Singapore. It is surrounded by HDB flats and within walking distance from the Sembawang MRT Station and Sun Plaza, this place is easily accessible. If you stay in one of the HDB blocks around the vicinity, you can just take a relax stroll to this place and order two crabs for just S$25!
The flesh of crab itself already has great taste, but when its natural sweetness combines with the saltiness of salty egg, it is simply magical! This is the wonderful thing about cuisine, it is all about the combination of tastes to take the fabulous dish to the next level so that people simply can't get enough ot it and desire for more! Cooking is much like composing music; when different notes are put together, a new melody is created. Cuisine is indeed an art!
Besides the melting pot of tastes, the end result of a dish is also very much depends upon the way it is cooked. Sometimes inexperienced chef who overcooked the crabs would make the flesh sticks to the shells and taste dryer at the same time. To make someone completely satisfies with his dining experience, first the environment of the place has to be comfortable, the food is well presented, delicious and finally it must not be a hassle while eating it. If you were to spend half of the time struggling to get the flesh out of the shell, do you think you will enjoy it? This does happen to some other places I have been to but not for this stall in Sembawang. Although stir fried, the flesh can still be easily separated from the shell while the juiciness of it was retained at the same time. When you have finish devoured all the flesh within the shell, you will find yourself licking the gravy around every single shell that has it, it was much more 'finger licking good' than KFC. It was that good!
