Pioneers of Singapore Chili Crab • Mdm Cher Yam Tian & Chef Hooi Kok Wah

The chili crab dish is synonymous with Singapore now and one of the must eat dishes of overseas visitors. Chili crab is found in specialist crab restaurants, zhi char (literally "cook and fry") restaurants and even hawker centre stalls. Along with Hainanese chicken rice, chili crab is often considered an unofficial national dish of Singapore. In 2011, CNN Go included chili crab in its list  of the "World's 50 most delicious foods".

There are actually two main streams of Singapore chili crab (though only one is prevalent now). Nonetheless, every restaurant or stall have their own unique tweaks and twists to the dish to get an edge over the competition.

The first stream is the pioneer type of chili crab still served at Roland Restaurant (in Marine Parade) on request. This is the original recipe Singapore chili crab created by Mdm Cher Yam Tian and first sold in 1956 at the sandy beach along Upper East Coast Road (the beach is gone today due to land reclamation).

The original chili crab sauce is a blend of bottled tomato sauce with sambal (a Malay origin chili relish) and chopped garlic. The thick sticky gooey sauce is a complex blend of savoury sweet spicy tangy flavours. There's a subtle underlying crustacean umami taste from crab stock.

The key in the original chili crab recipe is the sambal, the ingredients which remains a family secret even today. It is believed to have fresh chili pepper, chili padi (bird's eye chili), dried chili, turmeric, tau cheo (fermented bean paste), garlic, vinegar, etc.

The original chili crab is eaten with crisp and chewy charcoal toasted French loaf (baguette) which is used to scoop up and soak up the tomato - sambal (chili) sauce.

Mdm Cher's original version was initially made with swimmer crabs (flower crabs) but was soon replaced with meatier mud crabs. Swimmers don't have much claw meat but their body meat is soft and sweet. However, swimmers have more or less been eclipsed by mud crabs in the Singapore chili crab dish.

More about Mdm Cher Yam Tian's story 👈 click

The second type of Singapore chili crab was created by chef Hooi Kok Wah at his Dragon Phoenix Restaurant in 1963. Chef Hooi still runs Dragon Phoenix Restaurant with son Chris, now at Temasek Club at Rifle Range Road.

Chef Hooi's version is more zesty as in addition to bottled tomato sauce and house made sambal, chef added lemon juice and fruit vinegar. Furthermore, chef Hooi added egg white which thickens as well as smoothens the sauce. Adding beaten egg white or egg to sauce is a quintessentially Cantonese technique known as "wat tan" 滑蛋.

The cleaned and chopped crab is briefly deep fried in hot oil to rid it of raw taste, then simmered in crab stock before sautéing in tomato - sambal sauce which is prepared separately. It is then finished with corn flour starch and beaten eggs to thicken and smoothen the sauce.

Deep fried mantou or Chinese buns are the favourite bread now to finish up the sauce. The softly crisp outside, fluffy inside pillowy sweet bun complements the savoury sweet spicy tangy sauce well.

Chef Hooi's style of Singapore chili crab is today the more pervasive version. Even at Roland Restaurant run by Mdm Cher's son and grandson, the with egg version is the default style served. Customers who want to try the original 1956 version have to pre-order before coming to the restaurant.

In 2009, the Malaysian Tourism Minister Dr Ng Yen Yen (lady in yellow) said "We cannot continue to let other countries hijack our food. Chili crab is Malaysian. Hainanese chicken rice is Malaysian". Others recalled that chili crab was commonly found "all over" peninsular Malaysia, especially in Port Klang during the 1950s (then British Malaya and Port Swettenham) i.e. before Mdm Cher's famous Singapore chili crab.

However, so far no evidence has surfaced supporting these claims on chili crab.  From the historical perspective, I am keen to trace the antecedents of Singapore chili crab.  

Written by Tony Boey on 18 Nov 2022

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Image of mantou courtesy of Flickr, image of baguette courtesy of Flickr, image of chili crab courtesy of Flickr, image of chili crab courtesy of Flickr, image of chili crab courtesy of Flickr.