Steamed Crab with Glutinous Rice in Lotus Leaves

$20 per kg live mud crabs are simply irresistable. Non?

This recipe is incredibly simple and takes less than an hour to prepare. The idea is to infuse the glutinous rice with juices from the crab and the faint scent of the lotus leaves.

You will need:
- One large mud crab, about 1.1 kg
- Two large lotus leaves, first soaked in hot water for about 20 minutes. -- Dried ones are available from Asian grocers.
- One lap cheong or Chinese sausage, diced (available from Chinese BBQ shops).
- Dried shrimps, soaked for 10 minutes then roughly chopped (also from Asian grocers).
- Some spring onions, cut into batons
- Three cups of glutinous rice, soaked in water overnight
- A bamboo steamer basket
- Soy sauce
- ShaoXing cooking wine
- Sugar, salt and pepper to taste



Steps (roughly!):

1. Clean crab and marinate with 2-3 tbps of cooking wine.
2. Clean soaked lotus leaves and line steamer basket with leaves.
3. Place soaked glutinous rice on the leaves. Wrap rice with leaves and steam for 20-30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, heat pan to fry diced lap cheong. No cooking oil is required.
5. Add about the same amount of chopped dried shrimps to pan. Fry until fragrant. Add soy sauce (about 2 tbps), sugar and pepper to mixture.
6. Transfer fried lap cheong and dried shrimps onto steamed glutinous rice.
7. Add spring onions.
8. Place crab on spring onions and rice mixture. Wrap with lotus leaves and steam for another 5-10 minutes.
9. Attack!