On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:32:37 -0800, sf >
wrote:

>On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 04:47:43 GMT, Kathy in NZ wrote:
>>
>> Yes it was messy, but delicious, and I was surprised how much meat was
>> in the bodies, much easier to get at than I expected and absolutely
>> delicious.
>>
>> In the end I made stir-fry chilli crabs using the wok burner of the
>> barbecue. I won't use that particular recipe again without refining it
>> as the sauce was too heavy on tomato sauce, but the concept was great
>> and the crabs were fantastic, even though they *were* frozen, raw
>> blue swimmer crabs (from India).
>>
>> Here's a pic of the final dish.
>> http://tinypic.com/fxgw9x.jpg
>>
>I'm unclear on the concept of cooking crab in the shell with any sort
>of sauce. Doesn't the sauce come off with the shell? If so, why
>waste your time?

Now that I've tried cooking crabs I'll probably do them plain next
time. I had never cooked them before and was unsure what to do. Next
time it will be boiled or steamed or barbecued on the flat plate, so
that the delicate flavour of the crab is unadulterated.

They took much longer to cook than the recipe said, probably because
my small wok was so full of crab the heat wasn't readily getting to
them all. I resorted to covering the contents with a lid from a large
pot to help steam them.