Crab and Prawns

I woke up really early today, 5am to be exact. I’ve been thinking of cooking something spicy since yesterday. I thought of cooking mussels and prawns in coconut milk. I set my alarm and set off to Little India by 530am and went directly to the Tekka wet market. Most Singaporeans prefer to do their shopping in wet/dry markets because they will get the freshest and the cheapest buy compared to a supermarket. Almost everything you need for food is there. Most wet/dry markets close at noon but the Tekka market closes late in the afternoon so that’s a plus. Well the downside of going late in the afternoon is that you may not get the best pieces since most of them were already sold in the morning.

People are already doing their thing as soon as I arrived and its getting busier every minute. I went directly where the shellfish are sold. I bought a kilo of mussels and a ½ kilo of medium sized prawns. I was tempted to add a crab or 2 but I hesitated because I thought that there will be too much going on in the dish if I added crabs. I went to the dry section where vegetables are sold, I purchased a few batches (?) or heads (?) of bokchoi or pechay as we call it, 3 green chilis, 4 pieces of red chili, a head of garlic, 1 large white onion and about 4 cups of coconut milk. I spent a few more minutes in the market to browse and check if I needed to buy anything.  I bought 500 grams of pepper corns to replenish my stock and then went home after. 

I thoroughly cleaned the mussels removing some of the small barnacles remaining in the outer shell and rinsed it with old water and salt.

Procedure:

1.       Mince the garlic, chop the white onion, cut 3 green chilies and 4 red chilies into small pieces

2.       On a hot wok, put about 2-3 tbs of extra virgin olive oil

3.       Put the onions first until cooked and then followed by the garlic. I like lots of garlic so I minced the whole head of garlic. I want to have the sweet taste of garlic so I just rolled in it for about 40 seconds in the pan

4.       Put in the coconut milk (in my case, 4 cups) let boil for about 10-15 minutes in high fire while stirring and then put it on low to let it simmer until it has that thick oily consistency. You can put a little bit of sugar if you want to have that sweet and spicy taste to it.

5.       Put in the mussels and prawns and let it simmer for about 10 minutes to let juices infuse with the coconut milk. Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste followed the chopped chilies.  Give it a few stirs to prevent the coconut milk from burning and sticking.

6.       Lastly put the bokchoi and then cover the wok. Turn the fire off. The remaining heat will cook the mussels, prawns and bokchoi. This dish goes well with rice.