Mixing things up
By Theodore Lim
Faced with a multitude of problems that threaten it, chilli crab could see a saviour in the most unlikely of things — premixes.
Mr Low Hock Lee's shift every Saturday starts with three hours of prep work in the cramped kitchen of his Old Airport Road hawker stall. At the top of his agenda: prepare a week's worth of chilli crab sauce.
The process — chopping ingredients, blending spices and cooking the slurry down by hand — begins well before his store opens at 11 a.m.
The 64-year-old has run his stall as a one-man show in the afternoons for nearly 40 years. In the evenings, his wife joins him.
“I’m used to it, but it’s still tough,” he says.
For many veterans, the strenuous prep work and long days are routine. But for aspiring new hawkers, preparing these sauces from scratch is an intimidating and time-consuming labour.
Thinking out of the box
Mr Benson Tong sees a solution. It comes in a plastic pack.
The 44-year-old celebrity chef and food consultant has partnered with a Malaysian factory to produce premixed sauces for hawkers.
Preparing sauces and ingredients for dishes like chilli crab is tedious, and one batch of these sauces can take up to half a day to make, says Mr Tong. Sambal belacan is one base ingredient that can take hours to make from scratch.
Chefs like Mr Benson Tong see a future where premixed sauces — such as Jumbo Seafood Restaurant's — are used as a helping hand for inexperienced hawkers.
Premixes, he says, are cheaper and easier to store. These sauces are made in centralised kitchens — with the large capacity of these kitchens ensuring consistency. In addition, ingredients can be bought in bulk for cheap.
“We want to make things scalable,” he says. Mr Tong notes that premixes allow hawkers to produce a larger volume of dishes, since the premixes can be bought and stored in large quantities. They also simplify the cooking process by reducing the steps needed for a dish.
Other entrepreneurs share Mr Tong’s vision — albeit in a different form.
Mr Francis Ng believes that crab in a box could be the future.
Leveraging on vacuum-sealing food technology, the 47-year-old managing director of House of Seafood created a ready-to-eat chilli crab in 2015 — vacuum-packed in an embossed box.
Mr Francis Ng’s ready-to-eat crabs serve as an edible souvenir for tourists to take home.
Currently, Mr Ng has plans to expand abroad.
“In China, they really admire Singapore food,” he says. Seated in House Of Seafood’s flagship restaurant at Punggol Settlement, he pulls up WeChat on his smartphone.
A quick search of Ai Shang Pang Xie Zhi Jia — directly translating to “Loving House Of Seafood” in Mandarin — brings up its WeChat page. In a few taps, an order of ready-to-eat “Singapore Chilli Crab Dish” is added to the online cart.
House of Seafood's WeChat page allows Chinese customers to order crabs.
Now, says Mr Ng, you can get chilli crab within 24 hours, delivered straight to your doorstep in China.
Premix dystopia
This vision of a premix-dominated future has raised hackles amongst some in the industry — a compromise on freshness and flavor, for the sake of convenience.
“Premixes have affected our hawker chefs,” laments Mr David Yip, a food consultant and private chef. “A lot of our hawkers don’t even know how to cook food from scratch now”.
“The rempah (spice paste) has to be freshly cooked. If not, the xiang and xian from these spices will be missing.” The 60-year-old restaurateur highlights that premixes lacked these “freshness” and “fragrance” elements, which discerning diners will pick out.
He adds that aromatics, such as garlic and onion, are often added to mask the lack of these flavours, since dishes made from premixes often end up tasting flat.
For most young hawkers, however, the luxury of making fresh sauces is not an option.
“The artisanal chefs will feel, “wah, jialat ”,” concedes Mr Tong. “But in a way, it’s good in terms of economics.”
“You still need to cater to the lower income hawkers. They need to minimise their costs, and maximise the amount of time they can spend selling food.”
For some locals, premixes on retail pave a way for eating chilli crab cheaply at home.
“I think it’s a happy dish,” says Ms Shauna Gan. “Ideal for big family dinners or celebrations.”
The 25-year-old accounts executive started using premixes to make her own chilli crab at home, as an alternative to splurging at seafood restaurants to enjoy a dish she loves.
Her rendition of chilli crab — made from flower crabs or mud crabs sourced from a wet market near her home — cost an average of $35 to make per serving, compared to $100 or more from places like Jumbo or No Signboard Seafood.
Premixes make the process of preparing crabs less intimidating for home cooks like her, she says.
“We don’t have the confidence to do the sauce from scratch — we don’t want to waste the crabs by messing it up.”
Credits: Shauna Gan (@shaunanaana)
Ms Shauna Gan described her home-cooked chilli crab, made with flower crabs and Prima premix, as “satisfying" to make. The final product, she adds, is probably close to restaurant quality.
On the flipside, there are others who go back to basics when it comes to making homemade chilli crab — no premixes involved.
On the occasion that someone in the family craves chilli crab, Ms Chiara Ang, 27, can get a taste without leaving her house, and for cheap.
Her Filipino domestic helper, 57-year-old Teresita Delacruz, was inspired to cook up her own version after a visit to Long Beach Seafood. It was the sauce that reeled her in, says the food writer.
Ms Delacruz’s chilli crab is simple. After frying the flower crabs in oil, she mixes garlic, onion, Maggi brand bottled chilli sauce, chicken bullion cubes and soya sauce together in the hot wok. Toss in the flower crabs and simmer. To finish, crack in an egg.
An unintentional homage to the origins of the dish.
Finding common ground
For second-generation spice maker Anthony Leow, premixes need not be a compromise between flavour and practicality.
At his shop in Kreta Ayer, Anthony the Spice Maker, the 60-year-old sells his own version of chilli crab premixes, or “spice mixes”. These come in the form of a fresh paste that is stored chilled, or a dry blend of spices that has to be prepared with water and fresh aromatics before use.
Second-generation spice maker Anthony Leow and his daughter Min Ling in their Kreta Ayer shop, which stocks chilli crab spice mix. This blend has remained mostly unchanged since Mr Leow formulated it in the 1990s.
These mixes take more effort to prepare, but it also means that the spices remain fresh until cooked.
Chilli crab has been the centerpiece of celebrations for the Leow family. They often throw “chilli crab parties”, where Mr Leow whips up plates of crab made with his chilli crab spice mix at their home.
“We have it for my birthday when it comes around. Everyone gets messy together. It’s fun,” says his 26-year-old daughter Min Ling.
With the Leow family, chilli crab has come full circle. Having transformed from a home-cooked dish to a seafood restaurant signature, chilli crab has now been reclaimed for the dining table, with the aid of premixes.
Ms Leow plans to take over the reins of her father’s business. “We pass these recipes through generations. My dad learned it from the elders, and I see the need to keep these traditional flavours alive.”
For other veteran chefs, however, the future is not manufactured. To them, the future lies in evolution.
At his new stall in Tekka Place, Mr Joe Eng, 53, owner of Rong Guang Seafood, plans to unveil a new spin on the dish - mala chilli crab.
“There is no mala crab here in Singapore yet,” Tekka Place’s food curator Tony Tee, 61, says. He helped Mr Eng conceptualise this new special prior to the opening, drawing inspiration from the ubiquity of mala-style seafood in China.
“They evolved the chilli crab in China. So we reclaim it here.”
The numbingly spicy flavour — usually associated with hotpot and xiang guo (a hodgepodge of ingredients fried with mala spices) — has gained popularity in the city state. This flavor has made its way into potato chips, fish skin snacks and even cocktails.
Mala might be a mainstay for the Singaporean palate.
“We have to evolve,” says Mr Tee. “Being nostalgic about the past is fine — but we cannot go back. ”