A complete guide to cooking a Mud crab.
Plus recipes for: Mud crab curry, a pretty special sandwich and a cracking crab paella.
Mud Crab had to be in my top 3 favourite ingredients of all time. Chili crab with a cold beer, maybe my death row dish. And to be honest, even a simply boiled crab with lemon, bread and butter is pretty hard to beat.




Last weekend my son caught a mud crab on a little road trip down the coast (with a little help from a friend, cheers Sam!), this time we cooked something a little less spicy, an epic Paella.
So this week, I thought I’d share the Paella recipe, a complete guide to boiling a crab, and recipes for a pretty special crab sandwich and crab and sweet potato curry.
Mud Crab Paella
A great recipe to feed 4 - 6 people. If you can’t get your hands on a crab, sub out with prawns or chicken thighs. I would’ve added saffron too if I had some!
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
1 mud crab (about 1.2–1.5kg), cleaned and cut into quarters
150g calamari, cleaned and sliced
150g spicy chorizo, sliced
1 onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 marinaded capsicum, sliced
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 large ripe tomatoes, grated (or 200g tinned crushed tomatoes)
300g paella rice (bomba or calasparra or a medium grain)
900ml stock (hot)
150g frozen peas
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Lemon, parsley, fennel fronds to serve




Method
Fry the chorizo: In a wide paella pan (or large heavy pan), heat a splash of olive oil. Add chorizo and fry until golden. Set aside, leaving the oil in the pan.
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