Creamy Butter Crabs
Creamy, buttery with a hint of spiciness from bird's eye chilies and aromatic curry leaves, a rich-flavored dish that one would never forget; Creamy Butter Crabs.
We've been craving to enjoy butter crabs with warm and buttery crescent dinner rolls, but since I was swamped by my baking projects and at the same time tending to my personal commitments, I have postponed making the dish until I was ready.
We bought a bunch of curry leaves a week before I managed to cook the dish, that's why my curry leaves wasn't so fresh by the time I wanted to cook the dish.
Luckily, the leaves were still aromatic and flavorful enough to spice up our butter crabs!
There are a few ways of cooking butter crabs.
Some people prefer to put in the crabs directly into the gravy, without frying the them first.
I've prepared butter crabs this way previously, it turned out to be delicious!
We enjoyed our butter crabs with warm rice.
This time, I wanted to surprised my hubby by preparing butter crabs of different version because experimenting on how to make a better version of dishes is what I'm always passionate to do.
So for this version, instead of adding the crab pieces straight away into the gravy, I decided to marinate the crab pieces with a simple marinate paste made of curry powder, turmeric powder and salt for a few minutes before frying them for about a minute on each side.
I used flower crabs for our butter crabs, since they are smaller in size, they cooked faster than larger size crabs.
So, you might want to adjust the cooking time, depending on the type of crabs you use to for dish.
I prepared my homemade crescent butter rolls to be eaten with the butter crabs.
It was a simple dish for our lunch on that day but we truly feel like we were having a feast!
Nothing beats the satisfaction and fulfillment of having a good time together, enjoying simple home cooked dishes with our loved one!
When you heard of butter crab or any other dishes that are of similar nature, such as buttermilk chicken, what are the first thing that pop into your mind?
I used to think such butter-based dishes require the use of plenty of butter.
Yes, you might be correct, because we need the richness of the butter flavor to be prominent in our dish.
But as I started to familiarize myself to cook these kind of dishes, I personally think that it is not necessary to add plenty of butter in order to make the dishes flavorful.
And instead of pure butter, we prefer the dishes with Planta or Buttercup.
Planta is a well established margarine with delicious taste, even though it lacks the richness of aroma like pure butter, whereas Buttercup is a butter blend, where the butter has been mixed with margarine, that is why Buttercup has higher melting point than pure butter.
Instead of adding plenty of butter, which adding loads of calories into your dish, try adding vegetable oil into your dish.
I like to stick to the formula of 1 part of vegetable oil to 3 parts of butter/margarine/Buttercup for my butter based dishes.
It'll make delicious and scrumptious flavored dishes without overly rich buttery flavor.
Watch my video on how to make easiest and yummy butter crabs here:
Believe me, this version of butter crabs is more flavorful since we are adding marinated and fried crab pieces into the gravy and it's creamy too, even without the addition of Cheddar cheese or heavy cream!
Enjoy your home cooked butter crabs with other dishes such as plain rice or fragrant rice, toasted bread, bread rolls or mantao buns, so you can thoroughly enjoy the gravy!
Good luck & Happy Cooking!
Creamy Butter Crabs
Category : Lauk Pauk
Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking Time : 15 minutes
Serving Size : 2 to 4 people
INGREDIENTS
To Marinate Crabs:
4 flower crabs - halved and crushed the legs (mud crabs or stone crab is a great substitute)
1 tablespoon meat curry powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
A little bit of water
Salt as required
Butter Crab's Gravy:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 tablespoons salted butter (I used Buttercup)
4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
5 bird's eye chilies (thinly sliced ) * add more if you prefer the dish to be more spicy
2 stalks of curry leaves
Corn flour mixture (mix 1 tablespoon corn flour with 1/4 cup water)
1 can of evaporated milk (I used Carnation)
Salt to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Prepare paste mixture by combining curry powder, turmeric powder and salt in a small bowl. Add a little bit of water (about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons) and mix until mixture becomes paste-like.
Pour the marinade paste over the crab pieces and mix thoroughly until the crab pieces are evenly coated with the marinade mixture. Leave for 15 minutes at room temperature to marinade.
Heat a lot of cooking oil in a wok or deep fry pan. Once hot, fry crab pieces over medium heat about 1 minute on each side (you might want to extend frying time from 2 to 3 minutes for large size crabs).
Remove from heat and place fried crab pieces in a colander to drain excess oil. Set side. Remove the frying oil from the pan and save for frying fritters.
In a cleaned deep fry pan/wok, heat vegetable oil and butter over medium heat until butter is bubbling hard and almost fully melted.
Add in chopped garlic and curry leaves and stir fry for about 2 minutes, until garlic is light brown.
Add in sliced chilies and stir fry briefly.
Add the corn flour mixture, followed by a can of evaporated milk and stir well.
Add in the fried crab pieces, stir then cover with a lid and simmer for about 5 minutes, to slightly thicken the gravy.
Lastly, season with salt.
Dish out and serve with warm rice, butter roll or mantao.
Watch my video on how to prepare your homemade crescent butter rolls at home here :
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| Enjoy! |
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