At first, cut the onions into small dices, cut the ginger into very small dices, mince the garlic, cut the chilli into slices (diagonally) and cut the lemongrass into thin slices. Keep aside all the chopped and sliced vegetables separately in a container. We will use the ingredients at the different times. Only ginger & lemongrass can be kept together. If lemongrass is not available, then cook without it or can buy the essence online. Lemongrass gives a nice taste.

Clean the crabs; open the hard shell of the crab, remove unwanted white structures under the hard shell and clean under running tap water. You may use a piece of cloth or new tooth brush to clean the creases. Cutting of the crabs depends on the size of a crab so you can keep the whole body intact or can cut the body into two halves or just separate all the legs and claws.

Switch on a gas stove, take a pot, heat the pot, pour the oil into the pot and heat the oil. Once the oil is heated, fry the crabs for 5min until golden brown. It not takes much time to fry. You can also fry the hard cover, if you are using it for garnishing. Otherwise, you can throw it. Set aside the fried crab.

Remove the extra oil from the pot, keep around 2Tbsp. Sauté the minced garlic until nice aroma of garlic will comes out. Similarly, sauté the chopped ginger and lemon grass and cook for a while, but make sure that it is not over cooked or burnt. Add chopped onions, and sauté until soften. Once the onion is soft, add salt. Be careful about the amount of salt as we are also using sauces, which also contains salt. Add sliced chilli. Add chilli according to your taste.

Even though it is a chilli crab, but the dish is not very spicy. Rather, sweet, sour and chilli taste instead. Add tomato sauce and chilli sauce, mix all the ingredients and cook for a while. Add 100ml of water, add sugar, add black pepper powder and cook for a while. Further, add 500ml of water. Wait until the gravy starts boiling.

In the meantime, beat an egg and keep aside. Once the gravy starts boiling, add corn flour diluted into water. Add fried crabs into the gravy and cook for 10min. Add beaten egg into the gravy; the beaten egg gives a nice look, taste and texture to the gravy. However, the beaten is optional if you don’t like it. It will not change the taste much.

Finally, add some black pepper powder, sliced spring onions and sliced chilli. Gently, move the crab with spatula. Singapore’s famous chilli crab is ready to serve. It can be served with steam rice or bread.