Celebrity Chef Shen Tan's Perfect Singaporean Chili Crab

Chef Shen Tan ditched her corporate suit at Forbes for a hawker’s apron at Maxwell Food Centre, and earned her cooking stripes with her award-winning nasi lemak with Madam Tan’s Nasi Lemak. A purveyor of modern Singaporean cuisine, the celebrity chef is serving up a storm this week at Yamm at the Mira Hotel. Here she shares the recipe to her famed chili crab to #legend readers.

Make rempah, a spice paste:

3 large red onions
4 cloves garlic
2 centimetres ginger
30 grams fresh red chilli
2 tablespoons sambal belachan
1 tablespoons coriander powder
1 stalk curry leaves
1 tin chopped tomatoes (400 grams)

Mix the sauce:

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1/2 tablespoons light soy
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tabkespoon hsiao hsing wine

Other ingredients you will need:

1 egg (beaten)
1 kilogram crab, broken down into segments
3 stalks spring onions

The steps:

Fry the curry leaves in hot oil, then add and fry rempah in oil until fragrant. Add tin of chopped tomatoes and fry till softened.

Add sauce ingredients to the rempah. Add crab to the sauce.

Add beaten egg to the crab and sauce and mix well. Add chopped spring onions as garnish then serve.

But if you’re not inclined to make the dish yourself, head over to Yamm at the Mira Hotel this weekend. Tan will be serving nasi lemak, popiah, Hainan chicken rice and Mee Siam at the lunch buffet and Sunday brunch, while her chili crab will be served at the dinner buffet.

Yamm. The Mira Hong Kong, 118 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. +852 2315 5111.