I generally don't touch crabs and manage from cleaning to cooking with a serving tong. Reason? Its the moving limbs that freak me out :P But I don't mind eating it later. Reason again? Food or fear - food forever :P
Ingredients
Crab - 1 Kg
Pearl Onions - 15
Pepper - 10 to 15 corns
Turmeric - 1 teaspoon
Salt - to taste
Green chilly - 4 to 5
Cumin seeds - 1 tablespoon
Garlic - 10 cloves
Ginger - 1 inch peeled
Gingelly oil - 4 table spoon
Clean the crabs and cut into half so that the flesh can get soaked in masala. Grid the pearl onions, pepper corns, green chilly, ginger, garlic, cumin seeds, turmeric and salt to a fine paste. Don't add too much water as crab itself will give out the water. Once ground, heat a heavy kadai with 2 tablespoons of oil. Saute the fine ground paste for a minute or two. Add crabs to it. Stir it well so that the masala doesn't get burnt and also the crab gets coated evenly. Close cook it for 5 minutes. Open the lid and watch for the consistency of the masala, if it doesn't look like the one in the picture above, add 2 table spoons of gingelly oil, stir and close cook it in high flame. The watery nature changes and ends up as a lip smacking, finger licking crab masala! :)
Grab a nut cracker and break the heavenly flesh out of it. Don't forget to lick the shells as well. :)
Oh did I mention that I got this recipe right the first time itself? This is to assure you that so will you :)