Take the crabs and wash, clean, and cut them into desired cuts.

Take a pan, put some oil in it and roast the ginger chopped, garlic chopped, onion slices, Kashmiri Red Chillies, Peppercorns, star anise, poppy seeds, coriander seeds, mace, cinnamon stick, cloves, and grated coconut.

Take these roasted ingredients and make them into a fine paste.

In a thick bottomed pan, pour in some oil, splutter some curry leaves, and saute the rest of the onions and tomato cubes with some salt.

To this add the cut pieces of crab and saute them till the shells become pink.

Add the masala paste and some water and bring this to a boil.

Serve hot with some rice.