Crab Xacuti

While we were in Goa, if you recollect the market visit where we clicked a picture of those delicious goan sausages, we also came across some lively crabs, pun intended. They were still well moving about, anyway we managed to get 8 crabs for Rs100, that was a pretty good deal.

Would never get a price like that in Mumbai and tough to get them so fresh. Anyway, a friend of my mothers called Roslyn, wanted to prepare this dish for us, so here comes the next recipe, the Crab Xacuti. A special thanks to Roselyn for her help with this recipe 🙂

Anyway, although Roslyn used a ready to mix Xacuti masala, you can always refer to the Chicken Xacuti recipe to get the authentic goan xacuti masala.

Crab Xacuti Ingredients:

Crabs
1 Coconut
4 – 5 Pods of Garlic
2 Onions
Curry Leaves
Coriander
Green Chillies
Small Ball of Tamarind

If you don’t have a ready to mix Xacuti Masala, you need these ingredients for the masala below, and follow the procedure from this recipe.

6 Red Chillies (Kashmiri Chillies)
1/2 Scraped Coconut
2 Teaspoon of Cloves
1 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
8 Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Jeera
1/4 Teaspoon Methi Seeds
1 Tablespoon Khus Khus
1 Teaspoon Badee Saunf (Moti Saunf)
4 -5 Flakes Garlic
1 Table Spoon Corriander Seeds
1/2 Teaspoon Til
1/2 Onion
Although Roslyn used a ready mix, the dish turned out really tasty.

Firstly you need to wash the crabs and snap their claws, remove the really thin ones if you don’t want them in the dish. But it sure will add some flavor at least.

To snap the claws you need to hold the crab with one hand and twist and pull the claws with the other.

After your crabs are done you need to put them on the fire with enough water to just cover them, boil for 15 minutes.

While thats getting done, work on the masala, crush the pods of garlic, chop the onions and keep them aside.


Grate one coconut and add the garlic to it.

Add a teaspoon of the Xacuti masala to the coconut, remeber if you are making your own masala following the other recipe, you will use only half a coconut here as there would be half in the masala, also you would need to add more masala than a teaspoon around 1/4th of the masala and no garlic.

Roslyn’s dish uses a lot more coconut and the masala is a ready mix, so it misses the original xacuti colour. But it did taste really really good as well 🙂 If you want the authentic colour, use less coconut with the chicken xacuti recipe.

In the mean time saute the onions, garlic and curry leaves, add some of the masala to the saute and fry it.

By this time, your crabs should have boiled and hopefully cooled down for you to begin splitting them open.

Split the crabs by pulling on the top and lower halves,you can clean out the meat and throw out some of the shells if you like.


Keep the eggs and other edibles in some part of the boiled crab water that you can use to cook with the

The lower part of the crab abdomen can be split in to two further halves if desired, I do not know why, perhaps the masala is absorbed much better.

Add the crabs to the saute.

Add the xacuti masala, to the dish and let it come to a boil with occasional stirring.

Add the water that you kept aside with the eggs and edibles.

Bring the dish to a boil and let it simmer for a few minutes.

You’r Crab Xacuti is ready, sorry no pictures for splendid photography as, we were in Goa. After Roslyn made the dish my wife and I went walking through Panjim doing some photography, drove all the way to Dona Paula and from there connected back to Bamboli. Scenic and beautiful in the monsoons 🙂

Add the coriander for garnishing and presentation. I do hope you enjoy the crab xacuti, will have our next recipe up soon!