Salt & Pepper Mud Crab ala Beancounter

Over the weekend my dad got hold of these massive mud crabs. Guess who he called first to share the experience? No surprises there. Ahh, the benefits of a foodie’s son… My being a “foodie” I owe a lot to him. He doesn’t refer to himself as such but he definitely is one. We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things but when it comes to food we almost always agree.

By the way, there’s no exaggeration in the word “massive.” These crabs (claws closed and folded) were longer in length than a Pringles (potato chips) canister. I took several photos comparing the two to give you some perspective but I wasn’t happy with them so I decided not to post any. You just have to trust me.

I would normally head the Singapore style Chilli Crab direction but somehow it did not feel right on that occasion. I wanted to make the most of such excellent produce. Heavy sauce I thought would mask all that fresh crab goodness. So instead, I went the Salt & Pepper route.

I’ve only done this recipe using prawns. Crab is not that much of a deviation I figured.

Because of the size of these mud crabs I only used one in this recipe. It was enough to keep two people happy.

Salt & Pepper Mud Crab ala Beancounter

1 large mud crab cleaned and quartered.

Seasoned flour (cornflour or plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper)

Lots of oil for deep frying

1 onion chopped

2-3 cloves garlic chopped

1 chilli chopped

1 tablespoon salt

½ tablespoon sugar

Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Spring onions chopped

1. In a hot pan dry roast the salt, sugar and pepper. This should probably take less than 5 minutes. Take off the heat and set aside.
2. Heat up lots of oil for deep frying.
3. Dust the crab pieces in seasoned flour. Deep fry these till cooked. The timing depends on how big the pieces are. Set aside.
4. In a large wok, heat up a bit of oil. Sauté the onion, garlic and chillies for a couple of minutes.
5. Throw in the crab piece and toss for a couple more minutes.
6. Sprinkle your pre-prepared salt/sugar/pepper mixture and toss a bit more. Add the spring onions just before serving.

Chilli Crab Revisited

macadamia nuts

The flu season has brought with it blocked noses. Consequentially, my wife has suffered loss of appetite. To bring back to life that which was lost I cooked some chilli crab. The flavour and spice hit it brings was sure to deliver and more...

chilli flakes

Some of you are probably wondering why a photo of macadamia nuts is prominently displayed. Read on to find out.

belacan

The foundation of a good chilli crab is a good rempah. Rempah is what Indonesians and Malaysians call their spice paste made from fresh herbs and/or dry spices. And one essential ingredient in the rempah is candle nut. It is named as such as the nuts can be strung together and lighted up like candles.

alimasag (blue swimmer crabs)

I've never seen them in the Philippines but apparently we have what we call lumbang after which the town of Lumban, Laguna was named after. If you know more about this please do not hesitate to comment.

cooked spice paste (sauce that has to split)

Although candle nuts are readily available in Australia there weren't any when I shopped for my chilli crab. Macadamia, which is both rich and buttery, is my chosen substitute. It's got none of the bitterness of the candle nuts but adds depth and texture to the sauce. Not many are aware of this but macadamia, although successfully cultivated in Hawaii, is in fact an Australian native.

The recipe below is a variation on the chilli crab recipe I posted here:






Chilli Crab ala Beancounter

3 fresh crabs cleaned and halved, leave the main shell whole
Some flour
3 large onions
3 cloves of garlic
a knob of ginger
Fresh chillies to taste
Chilli flakes or dried chillies to taste
4-6 macadamia nuts
1 tablespoon belacan (shrimp paste)
1 large onion chopped (yes, another one)
1/2 cup tomato ketchup/sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup stock
Salt to taste
Oil - lots of it

1. First, you need to make the rempah or spice paste. Combine the onion (the first 3), garlic, ginger, various chillies, and macadamia nuts in a food processor. Blitz until they turn to paste. You make this as fine or chunky as you like.
2. Heat up some oil for deep frying.
3. Coat the crab pieces in flour. Shake off the excess flour. Fry the crab pieces until they are about half way done. This should take approximately 2-3 minutes. Set aside.
4. Heat up a bit of oil then saute the chopped onion (yes, the other one) until it is nicely caramelised.
5. Add the rempah and cook for about 10 minutes.
6. Add the tomato ketchup and the sugar. Cook for another 2 minutes.
7. Add the stock. Reduce the sauce to a consistency you prefer.
8. Add the fried crab pieces. Make sure all the crab is coated well by the sauce.
9. Lower the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes or until the crab pieces are cooked.
10. Garnish with some fresh coriander. Serve hot!

Little Singapore - Charlotte St, Brisbane

Our first visit to Little Singapore was for Sunday lunch on Valentine's Day. Things started out well. We were seated pretty much as soon as we arrived.





First impressions were really good. The restaurant felt spacious. The decor was very tastefully done. The menu was a sight to behold boasting a number of dishes I've never seen in similar restaurants around Brisbane.




I purposely did not bring my camera that day. All I wanted was to enjoy the food and worry about the photos on a highly probable follow up visit.





As it was our first time we wanted to concentrate on our all time family favourites. I wanted to get popiah (Singapore style fresh spring rolls) for entree but apparently it wasn't available. We settled for Roti Canai instead and weren't disappointed. For mains we ordered Hainan Chicken Rice, Fried Chicken Kapitan, Hokkien Mee and Char Kway Teow.




One thing I really appreciate was how generous the servings were. Might not be enough for two regular sized adults but sure is plenty for one.





All in all it was good but not really memorable.





We gave them another go a couple of weeks later with my parents in tow. Again, we started with Roti Canai and some spring rolls. Kiko was pretty disappointed with his chicken rice the last time so he decided to go for the Yeong Chow Fried Rice instead. My girls shared Hokkien Mee once again, mom had Seafood Hor Fun, dad ordered BBQ Pork and Roast Duck Rice, and I had their Curry Laksa.





Another filling lunch but like the last time pretty ordinary. The laksa was especially forgettable.

When I visit a Singaporean restaurant what I'm really after is a flavour explosion courtesy of Nonya style dishes distinct to the cuisine of this island nation. And that's probably why I'm somewhat dissatisfied with Little Singapore. Their dishes were good but lacked the oomph. The spices seemed to have been mellowed to the point of blandness. I had to ask for extra sambal just to get that spice hit I'm looking for and still didn't quite get there. Their sambal was indicative of the rest of the dishes - more sweet than spicy.






This restaurant has got a lot going for it - central and convenient location, spacious and stylishly decorated premises, generous servings of a wide selection of dishes, and very reasonable pricing. Unfortunately though, I believe they have to work on their flavour department.




One last thing, on both occasions we felt like we had to beg the staff to break a smile. It's a relatively modern Asian restaurant run by a fairly young staff. It wouldn't cost much to show your teeth from time to time.

Hainan Chicken Rice ala Beancounter

It definitely wasn’t love at first sight but my heart definitely did melt after the first bite of Hainan Chicken Rice. In the beginning, I could not see the attraction people have for this dish. Nothing by the way it looks strikes me as spectacular. I mean it’s just poached chicken and rice… But my opinion did a big turn around after tasting this quite unimposing but magnificent dish!

I first had it back in my university days. It was heaven on a plate (1 plate and two bowls actually) for a student on a very limited budget. I remember tagging along with some friends to this hole in the wall restaurant called Tak Chee (don't know what it means but it must be along the lines of "double happyness" or something that's supposed to bring good luck) to have their famous $5 chicken rice.

I paid an homage to this same restaurant where "we first met" years after I've left Perth. But sadly though, on my most recent visit early last year it was shut ...permanently (probably to make way for new apartments).

Like anything really good I was a little bit intimidated by Hainan Chicken Rice. There’s at least three parts to it (the chicken, the rice and the soup) that made it seem daunting to try at home. It took years before I even attempted it. I had varying degrees of success in the beginning but I eventually got it right, to my taste that is. Well, my friend Patrick thinks it’s the best chicken in Brisbane so I must be doing something right! *LOL* another shameless self-promotion!

Hainan Chicken Rice

Chicken

1 very fresh chicken (preferably free range)

6 slices fresh ginger 2 cloves garlic, slightly bruised

2 spring onions1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp light soy sauce

Some sea salt

Some ground white pepper

Poaching Stock

Chicken bones a kilo of chicken wings or legs

3 pieces of ginger

2 spring onions

Chicken Rice

3 cups jasmine rice

Some chicken fat taken from the whole chicken

2-3cm ginger finely chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, chopped very finely or grated

3 ½ to 4 cups of poaching stock

1 pandan leaf

Chilli Sauce

10 fresh red chillies, seeds removed

1-2 cloves garlic

5cm fresh ginger

2 tsp poaching stock

Lime/Lemon juice to taste

Sea salt to taste

Ginger & Spring Onion Sauce

Walnut size finely chopped ginger

2 cloves garlic finely chopped garlic

½ tsp salt

Chopped spring onion

Oil (not Olive oil)

Chicken Soup

Poaching stock

Chopped spring onion or small amount of shredded lettuce


1. Firstly, make the stock to be used to poach the chicken. In a large enough pot (to fit the whole chicken) put some water and add some ginger and spring onion and the chicken bones/wings and bring to a boil. You can use already made chicken stock if you like but still add the ginger and the spring onion.
2. While waiting for the stock to boil prepare the chicken by rubbing it with salt and a bit of white pepper inside and out. Place the spring onion, slices of ginger and the garlic inside the chicken.
3. After letting your stock boil for a couple of minutes lower the heat to the lowest setting. Place the chicken in the stock breast side down. Let it poach (the water should be barely boiling) for about half an hour. Turn the heat off and cover and leave for another half an hour.
4. Remove the chicken from the stock and set aside. You should chop it just before serving. Dress it with some light soy sauce and sesame oil.
5. Next prepare the chicken rice. Wash the rice then drain well. Render the chicken fat in a little bit of oil in a pan.
6. Add the finely chopped ginger and garlic.
7. Add the rice and stir fry for about a minute or two.
8. Transfer the mixture to a rice cooker and add enough stock as recommended by your rice cooker brand. Place the pandan leaf in the rice cooker as well.
9. For the chilli sauce combine the chillies, garlic and ginger in a blender. Add the stock, lime/lemon juice and some sea salt and blend together.
10. For the ginger and spring onion sauce, heat up some oil in a pan in very high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, spring onion and salt and fry for a minute. Take off the heat and set aside.
11. For the soup, adjust the taste of your poaching stock to your liking. Add some chopped spring onion/shredded lettuce before serving.

Cheap Eats – Laksa Hut

51 Sherwood Road
Toowong, QLD 4066
Speciality: Laksa

You’ve heard the old adage “do not judge a book by its cover”. It’s fairly true with a lot of my favourite eateries. They are sometimes literally “hole in the wall” operations. But the look of premises betrays little about the glorious food that is on offer.

Laksa Hut is a good example of such. The signage was obviously done on a very limited budget (it looks hand painted – and I do not mean that as a compliment). There’s very little décor to speak of. Basic white crockery was probably too minimalist for them (an eclectic mix of tableware was more their thing…Hello Kitty plastic spoons, etc). And so on and so forth… but the food is good and that’s what matters!

Laksa Hut almost did not make it on my list of cheap eats. You see, a cheap (but not nasty) meal for me should cost less than $10.00. But Laksa Hut recently pushed up their prices by a $1.00. The cheapest laksa on their menu now costs $10.50.

I’m no laksa expert. All I know is how I want my laksa. And Laksa Hut do theirs pretty close to my idea of a good laksa. My Singaporean friends concur with this. The laksa here, according to them, is very similar to what they get back home.


I always order the Roast Pork Laksa but they offer a whole range, from vegetarian to roast duck. It always comes steaming hot, chockfull of the ingredients you would expect and with just the right amount of spiciness!

Laksa Hut can push up their prices a bit more (they might actually do as another unwanted effect of the GFC). I might complain a bit but I know I’ll be back.

Chilli Crab ala Kidpawan

When I’m feeling generous and want a special treat and have loads of time I would cook Chilli Crab. It is not really complicated to make but it does take a long time to prepare and cook… Ok, Ok, it’s quite involved but the reward at the end is worth all the effort.

Chilli Crab is an original Singapore dish. You’ll find lots of variations to this dish on the net. I based mine on the one I found in the Australian Gourmet magazine in the late 90’s. I can still remember my wife, heavily pregnant with our first child, photocopying the magazine for me. I was studying for my final exams at State Library of WA but she decided to tag along to keep me company. I tweaked the recipe a little bit to suit my taste better. It worked then and still works now more than a decade later.

Chilli Crab ala Kidpawan

4 fresh blue swimmer crabs cleaned and quartered
Some flour
4 large onions
2 cloves garlic
6 slices ginger
Chilli flakes/powder to taste
1 large onion chopped (yes, another one)
1 cup tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup stock
Salt to taste
Oil – lots of it

1. First you need to make the chilli paste. Combine the onions, garlic, ginger and chillies in a food processor and blitz until they turn to paste. You can make this as chunky or as fine as you like.
2. Heat up some oil for deep frying.
3. Coat the crab pieces in flour. Shake off excess flour then fry. Set aside fried crab.
4. Heat up a bit of oil the sauté the chopped onion until golden brown.
5. Add the paste and cook for about 10 minutes.
6. Add the tomato ketchup and the sugar. Cook for another 2 minutes.
7. Add the broth.
8. Add the crab pieces. Make sure all the crab is coated well by the mixture.
9. Lower the heat and simmer for about 2 minutes.
10. Serve hot with jasmine rice

080723 – Lunch Club – Singapore Chicken Curry (Again!)

Yes, it’s Singapore Chicken Curry again! Not that anyone is complaining (maybe there are but are just to afraid to say it to my face). It’s just that the point of Lunch Club is variety but due to our busy schedules we had to make do with what’s quick and easy to make.

Singapore chicken curry (again!)

Anyway, to vary today’s lunch we are neither having the curry with roti paratha nor jasmine rice. For a bit of a twist I have brought store bought chapattis (garlic) instead.

chappati proudly Australian made

Everybody seemed to enjoy the meal even if we’ve had it a few times already.

ready to eat chappatis

Lunch Club – Singapore Chicken Curry & Roti Paratha

I try to write about Lunch Club soon after we’ve finished lunch but last Thursday was just crazy. I didn’t find the time to do so as I had to complete some other tasks because I had to go on leave the following day. It school holidays, you see, in our part of the world. And I promise my children that I would take them out at least one weekday during their break.

Anyway, Thursday is my turn to cook. Being pressed for time and all I had to come up with some quick and tasty. I have prepared this meal once before for Lunch Club and it was a hit. The amount of effort was not an indicator of how the meal turned out.

Roti Paratha fresh out of the packet

So, on Thursday we had Singapore Chicken Curry served with Roti Paratha and/or Jasmine Rice. My friend from the Lion City has graciously provided the curry paste freshly flew in from Singapore. I have to find out where I can get this in the land down under as it will run out pretty soon. I am not heading to Singapore anytime soon to top up my supply.

Singapore Chicken Curry, Roti Paratha and the ever present cucumber salad

Here’s the recipe:

Singapore Chicken Curry

2-3 Desiree potatoes (one potato cut in 4)
3 pieces Chicken breast cut up in large pieces
2 tablespoons Singapore curry paste
1 can Coconut cream (or coconut milk if you prefer a lighter sauce)
Salt to taste
Oil whatever you prefer

Mix the curry paste and the chicken and leave for at least half an hour. While waiting fry the potatoes then set aside. Put a bit of oil in a pan and fry the chicken pieces then set aside. Remove the oil then put back the chicken pieces. Add the coconut cream. Wait for it to boil then add the fried potatoes. Let is simmer for 10-15 minutes. Voila! Best served hot on top of steaming jasmine rice or with roti paratha.