Blue Crab curry - traditional cooking
After a long time, we decided to try out Crabs yesterday based on my daughter's demand. She heard about it somewhere and since she started eating non-veg very recently (after 10 yrs), I was ready to fulfill her demand. We have local market places, where we get the regular red crabs. But then we also have a Chilika Fresh outlet nearby, which serves good products. So I went there and got 4 blue crabs.
They cleaned up them well and made pieces. We wash these (usually with any non-veg) and then add turmeric powder and salt and leave it for some time. It has been a very old traditional practice , with a belief that turmeric will get rid of all the bad things. After some time, the first thing you need to do is to fry them, there will be so much smell everyone nearby will know, that something is cooking 😀
Then it was time to prepare the spices that were going to be used in the crab curry. The spices we used are : Onions, dried red chili, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, cardamom, and Cumin seeds.
Then toast all of the spices, also have some coconut ready which will be used in the curry.
Then grind all of the spices together, except the coconut. Also fry some potatoes to add in the curry.
Take some oil in a big pan, add some onions and saute for some time.
After the onions become brown, add ginger garlic paste, fry for some more time in low heat and then add tomato puree after 5-6 minutes.
Let the masala cook for some time until the raw smell goes away. Add water and add the crab and leave it at low flame for 15 - 25 mins. And done ! Tasty blue crab curry is ready to be eaten. Serve hot with rice and salad. And by the way, I also got some small fishes as a compliment. It's advised by doctors to eat these small fishes alone 😀
Interestingly my daughter started wondering how to eat them, after they were served. She did a Google search for that😁, but then I helped her to learn how to get the flesh out of these and she loved the taste so much that, she asked to get it one more time.