Crab curry recipe (My 10pm cooking....)

So since I realized we are expecting our second baby, I have been cooking up a storm anytime I feel like it and the best part is sometimes, I end up not eating any of it after all that effort. So today suddenly out of blue, I felt like cooking (see what I mean, I say cooking and not eating) Crab Curry. So even though I have never cooked it myself (I have always eaten it in Goa and I absolutely love it) I decided to try it out. Even searched for the recipes online but somehow nothing appealed to me and then I decided to see if one of my friend (due to her request, not mentioning her name here) was online. She is from Konkan area and her mum also is a great cook so decided to ask her for recipe in case I found her online and hey presto...I actually did...So then I sent my husband out to shop for crabs (bless him, I do not think any other person would go out in the snow at 9:30pm just because I wanted to cook crabs, he even got me back ice creme that I like) and I started making the preparations. Just finished cooking the crab curry and it tasted really really great so here is my recipe for all of you.

Note: I always stayed away from cooking this because I used to find cleaning and cutting crabs a headache but in shoprite, I actually found small blackish-blue crabs which were pre cleaned so all I had to do was separate the claws which is very easy.

Tip: This is the best tip I think I got from my friend-You have to only keep the thickest claws for the curry, the rest of the thin claws you grind with water. Then strain this water and keep aside.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tsp of coriander seeds
• 1 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp methi seeds

(Roast all these without oil but do not let them get brown)

• 7 cloves of garlic
• 1 inch of ginger
• 1 bowl of coconut (wet coconut gratings-I use from frozen packet)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 6 begdi red chillies (if you do not get begdi use two tsp of kashmiri chilli powder, you can add more in the end if you find it less spicy but use less to start with. Begdi Chillies give color and are less spicy that other types of dry red chillies.)
• 1/2 tsp tamarind paste diluted in 1/2 cup of warm water.

Make a past of all of the above items including the roasted spices. The paste should be almost fine.

On a heated flat bottom pan, add 5 spoonful of oil. Once the oil is heated, add finely chopped 1 medium onion. Fry till it starts getting brown on the edges (do not let it be completely brown but just transparent and golden on edges) Now add the group paste and fry again for 3-4 minutes till oil separates from sides.

On one side, heat some water and add the crabs in it. Keep them till their color changes to orange-red. Now remove and separate claws. Add the claws and middle part (the hard shell is removed from them) and some warm water in which you kept the crabs. Let it boil. Now add salt to taste. In the end also add the strained water from the thin claws and cover and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

Voila....Your crab curry is ready and for the best taste do this at night and serve next day as it tastes even better the next day. Hope you all enjoy this one and if I get any more cravings for cooking (LOL) I will certainly post more of those too.