CRISPY CRAB STICKS
Chinese New Year is coming! It is a joyous period for family members reunion, for people to come together to celebrate the harvest after a year of hardwork and look forward to a better new year.
During Chinese New Year, it is a time to visit relatives and friends to catch up with each other. The visits also end up with lots of snacking. There are goodies be it traditional or modern ones like homemade cookies, nuts, fruits, sweets, grilled meat and cakes. The laborious preparation of the treats started weeks before the lunar new year. These days, it is easy to find the traditional snacks at markets or supermarkets, because most women have time constraint due to their work.
I am sharing with you this popular snack, crispy crab sticks that is super easy to prepare. I take this as a simpler version of prawn crackers. Crab sticks are imitation crab meat made of pulverised white fish (surimi, ground meat in Japanese) and starch, cured and shaped like the legs of snow crabs. This snack is notoriously delicious! If you haven't try them before, go a get a bag of crab sticks and start immediately, you will soon get the hang of it!
You can find it easily at supermarket. The white fish meat is covered in red food dye resemble crab legs, wrapped individually in plastic film and arranged nicely in packets. For this recipe, you have to buy the cheaper version where contains more starch, it will be crispier once fried. I managed to get the uncoloured version from the wet market though.
Ingredients:
1 kg crab sticks
1 bunch of curry leaves (optional)
5 cups of cooking oil
Method:
1) Wash curry leaves and remove the leaves from the stem. Put aside and drain dry.
2) Discard the plastic film of crab sticks, open up the roll and tear it into desired pieces.
3) Heat up the cooking oil in a wok/pot. Test the oil with chop sticks, the oil is hot enough when you see tiny bubbles around the chopsticks.
4) Add in curry leaves to fry for a few minutes, or until no more oil popping sound. Scoop to drain the oil and put aside.
5) The oil is full of the wonderful smell of curry leaves now. Add in a bunch of crab stick pieces, do not stir immediately, let it set into shape first. Start to stir a bit when it starts to turn beige.
6) Scoop and drain the oil away once it turns golden brown. Spread on kitchen towel and let it cool down. Store in air tight container.
