Steamed Fresh Crab in Curry Sauce

This is the kind of crab dish you’d see on the lazy Susan at a Cantonese banquet, where the whole steamed shellfish gets reassembled on the platter under its own back plate, then crowned with a glossy curry sauce just before serving. The drama is half the dish.

Steaming live crab in shell, sprinkled with dry sherry and topped with fresh ginger before the back plate goes back on, locks aroma directly into the meat. Fifteen to twenty minutes of rolling-boil steam gives you sweet, tender crab without the watered-down flavor of boiling.

The curry sauce is a light Cantonese style, not heavy Indian curry. Curry powder bloomed in oil with garlic, then thinned with stock and brightened with ginger and red bell pepper, then thickened with cornstarch slurry into a glossy pour. Subtle, not assertive, so the crab stays the star.

Chef Tips

• Bloom the curry powder in hot oil for about 1 minute, but do not let it burn. Burnt curry turns bitter fast and ruins the sauce.
• Use the cornstarch paste sparingly, just enough to coat the back of a spoon. Heavy slurry equals gluey sauce that hides the crab flavor.
• Have the steamer at a true rolling boil before the crab goes in. Slow heat makes for stringy, tough meat.
• Crack the claws gently before steaming. Whole intact claws cook unevenly because the shell insulates the dense meat inside.

Variations

• Stir 1 tablespoon of coconut milk into the finished sauce for a Singapore-style chili crab lean.
• Add a teaspoon of fish sauce and a squeeze of lime to the sauce for a Vietnamese twist.
• Serve over a bed of steamed jasmine rice to catch every drop of the curry sauce.