Dish · malaysian
Chili Crab
Whole crab cooked in a thick, sweet-spicy tomato-and-egg sauce, often mopped up with fried mantou buns.
Where it comes from
The dish is credited to Singapore hawker cooking in the 1950s, when a cook began serving crab in a spicy tomato sauce instead of the usual pepper or salt preparations, though as with many hawker dishes the exact origin is disputed.
What cooks argue about
Cooks argue over the sauce base: tomato-forward for sweetness, or heavier on chili paste for heat, and whether the egg is stirred in to thicken it or streaked through at the end for ribbons.
Versions
Nobody has published a chili crab here yet. When somebody cooks one from a video and publishes it, their version appears in this list, with a link back to the original.
What goes in it
Each one opens everything else made with it.
crab
egg
garlic