Soft Shell Crabs in Butter Cereals

This the 3rd dish for my husband's birthday dinner. The 4th was a dessert (please see the next post) .

My husband and I love a particular dish from Bi Feng Tang 避风塘 (literally translated as "Storm Shelter" in Chinese), Soft Shell Crab Bi Feng Tang Special. So on his birthday, I cooked this for him. An extra big plate some more. What you see here was only 1/5 of the whole dish. Yeah, I cooked that much. That's how much we, including my son, enjoyed that dish. *wink*

By the way, you can use the same method to cook with prawns or squid. I had also tried replacing cereals with oats too. Tasty too.

Ingredients:

• 500g Soft Shell Crabs, half
• Oil for frying

Marinade:

• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 tablespoon Corn Flour
• a dash of Pepper

Flour Coating (not batter, DO NOT ADD WATER) :

• 3 part Corn Flour
• 1 part Rice Flour

Seasoning:

• 3 tablespoon Butter
• 6 tablespoon Cereals (I used Nestle's Nestum Cereals)
• 1/2 tablespoon Garlic, minced
• 1/2 tablespoon Shallot, sliced
• 1 tablespoon Sugar
• 3 sprig Curry Leaves, leaves removed from stalk
• 4 Chili Padi, sliced
• Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Marinade soft shell crabs for half an hour.
2. Heat oil in pot.
3. Drip dry crabs and coat with flour.
4. Fry till crabs turn red.
5. Remove and drain.
6. Return to oil pot for frying again when you are ready to make the butter cereals. This helps to make them extra crunchy.
7. Remove and drain.
8. Put butter in wok.
9. Add garlic, shallot and curry leaves.
10. Stir fry till fragrant.
11. Add the remaining ingredients.
12. Stir fry quickly till the cereals turn slightly brown.
13. Add in the crabs and coat well.
14. Dish and serve.

Note:

• If you are using squid or prawns, do not re-fry them as they would turn too hard.
• If the seasoning is too dry, add more butter, otherwise it will not coat well.

• Click HERE for printer-friendly version of an original recipe

* Alternative dishes using same cooking method *