The Chilli Crab filling is inspired by the classic Singapore Chilli Crab dish, and the delicate & delicious wrappers are made with green spinach dumpling dough! One of the downsides to living in the middle of the country is the lack of great sea food. Like a good lobster roll, or pan fried salmon, or a tuna poke bowl. Having lived only a stone’s throw away from the beach most of my life, I have grown up with ample access to crabs (especially blue swimmer crabs that I make a killer spicy crab curry with!) and my personal favourite – soft shell crab. I’d have to catch a three hour flight and then drive several dozen more miles before I can even sight a beach, from where I live now. The funny (and sad at the same time) thing though is that as much I love eating crab meat, I have grown slightly allergic to it over the last few years. It’s not too serious – it’s nothing that an antihistamine pill cannot take care of, so I’m still far from ready to give up on it. But here in mid-Missouri, good crab meat is rare and expensive. So is frozen crab meat and it’s usually just crab legs that you get here, although you can still find beautiful packaged crab meat in the refrigerated meat aisle. Recently on a trip to the grocery store, I came across some of this, and after some raised eye brows on my hubby’s part and a promise to use it for something spectacular (and for the blog – that always works on Mr K!), I bought some of that gorgeous crab meat! 🙂 While it isn’t ideal for my favourite crab dishes – the Sri Lankan crab curry and the Singapore chilli crab, it’s still awesome enough for many other uses. This is one of them!
Chilli crab dumplings
Say hello to my killer Chilli Crab Dumplings (Potstickers), inspired by classic Singapore chilli crab. There is so much, I mean SO MUCH fantastic flavour stuffed in these bad boys, you don’t even need a dipping sauce. Really. If you haven’t had Singapore Chilli Crab before, you are seriously missing out on something. 🙂 Beautiful crab meat coated in a thick, rich, sweet and savoury tomato and chilli sauce and flavoured with amazing spices and cilantro… it takes everything in my will power not to lick my plate clean if I’m eating this at a restaurant. If I’m at home though, forgeddabout it! These Chilli Crab Dumplings (Crab Potstickers) really are a fantastic alternative to your usual pork filling. Imagine a pocket of light dough, stuffed with an insanely flavourful crab meat filling that’s dripping with all the flavours of tomato, chilli and herbs, and then steamed and browned in a pan… You probably won’t ever feel the need to eat out at a Chinese restaurant again, if you make these babies at home. You can make these potstickers with regular potsticker wrappers (or dumpling dough) or with green dumpling wrappers. I just loved the contrast between the green wrappers and the reddish filling.
How to fill and seal the dumplings (potstickers)
Filling and sealing potstickers is super easy. I’m not going to cover that here because I have a detailed tutorial on how to do it, in my post on how to make perfect dumpling dough and potsticker dough. The easiest way is to just fold the wrapper over the filling and then crimp the edges with a fork. Here’s another way I like to seal my potstickers. I love the way it looks. Like I said these are some of the most flavour packed potstickers we have ever had. The fusion of that classic Singaporean dish with potstickers might seem a bit unorthodox, but you can see how it works! 🙂 I served these with some soy sauce, but really you don’t need any. Slightly sweet and slightly sour, and with the spicy heat from the chilli and all the flavours of the spices and herbs, these babies are little morsels of chilli crab heaven! If you liked this recipe don’t forget to subscribe for new (and free) recipes and updates by entering your email address below (and get all these recipes delivered straight to your inbox), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find me on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST and GOOGLE-PLUS too.
