Crab cooking

[GearHead]

A shellfish book I recently read said that using seawater to boil them in is ideal, but if you can't do that, then you can at least try to closely match the salinity. Use a cup of Rocksalt per gallon of water and you'll be mighty close. One word of warning, iodized Morton's table salt is not the same thing as rocksalt.

We threw in some fresh garlic and beer when we boiled some crab last week, plus just a dash of garlic powder into the drawn-butter for dipping. Everyone at the table was quite happy with the flavor. :licklips:

I highly recommend that you use one of the methods for cleaning them alive before you boil. If you don't have a sharp stick like Uncle Pug talks about, you can try the technique we used:

Take a large cutting board and a stack of newspaper outside to a working surface outside. Lay the crab on his back and place the tip of a large, sharp knife at the tip of his tail, with the blade toward his face. You may want to use some sturdy tongs to hold him in place for this part. Drive the knife point down through his abdomen, and bring the blade down through the "head" area, until you hit the top shell. At this point, he may move a bit, but shouldn't give you any more trouble. Bend the tail backwards away from the body, and complete the incision all the way to the beginning of the tail. Grab each side of legs in each of your hands, with the crab still on his back, and bring the base of the legs together, separating the legs from the top shell.

After you do that, cut away the gills from the body, rinse off any attached guts, etc. and you have two CLEAN crab halves that take a lot less space in the pot.

Now, looking at and smelling the nastiness left over inside that shell, would you really want to cook your next crab whole? :yuck: Not me!

Replace wet, nasty newspaper as necessary, and don't get too squeamish during the knife-duty.

Happy Crabbing,

GearHead

 

[Louie]

Cooking in a fish restaurant was one of the odd things I did as a student in my youth.

Key element in getting the crab (Dungeness variety anyways) just right was you start from COLD water. Throw in the live specimen, hold down the lid (because it'll struggle) and hope the water temperature reaches the stage where the poor crab expires.

I wasn't told exactly why but it worked, judging from the popularity of the dish.

 

[sdexcalibur]

Wow thanks everyone who added their two cents and more(pug).
Thanks for the link(Tchil) it is great. Got alot of different ideas. Kill first, cook alive. freeze. Now all I have to do is catch some.

Last thing, I was always told lobsters scream when boiled. Thanks for putting it straight

 

[sillygrendel]

I love steamed blue crabs.

Get a big steamer, a bunch of old bay, some rock salt and seaweed.

Layer of (live!) crabs, layer of rock salt, layer of old bay, layer of seaweed... Repeat as necessary :mean:

 

[JustinW]

In all seriousness, I have found that the best way to prepare crab is to do it at the ocean. We bring them in off the boat along with a seperate bucket filled with seawater. Bring the seawater to a boil, take your crab seasonings and throw them away as all you need is the seawater. Once the seawater is boiling toss in the crab, whole and alive. Crabs and other inverts lack a central nervous system so they don't feel pain (it took a neuroscientist to explain it to me before I understood it). I cook the crabs for about 10-12 minutes then pull them out of the pot and put them on the table, we eat them as soon as they are just barely cool enough to handle.

 

[drtherc]

Especially cooking the cajun way! Cajuns like to eat the fat and the eggs out of the carapice. If you clean the crabs first, you lose a lot of flavor!

 

[drtherc]

Seawater is the best, though. You can buy sea salt, too.

 

[Zippsy]

I'm disgusted with the answers here. The only DIR way to cook crabs is:

1. the crabs must be live. If they ain't kicking, they ain't cooking.
2. if you boil them, feed them to the cats. That's all they're good for. Crabs are meant to be steamed!!!
3. Steam them in a big steamer with the stream provided by 1/2 beer (older than 6 months is best - don't waste the good stuff) and 1/2 white vinegar.
4. Layer the crabs as you cover them generously with Old Bay and very course salt.
5. Steam them until they turn bright red. In my steamer that hold about 3 dozen medium Indonesian crabs or 6 dozen Chesapeake Bay blues, it takes about an hour.
6. Pour piping hot crabs onto a table covered in newspapers and enjoy.

Any other way of cooking them is just uncivilized!

p.s. to Grendel. Seaweed??? just how far north of Baltimore are you?

 

[scricepaddy]

I can't beleive this thread went on this long before somebody fnally got it right!! :boings:

Thank you Zippsy. You are obviously a misplaced Marylander. The only change I would make is to add Bay water to the beer and vinegar ( equal parts).. at least thats how my grandfather did it. :sigh:

BTW- my daughters first sentence was " My wanna eat a Cab"

Dan

I'm disgusted with the answers here. The only DIR way to cook crabs is:

1. the crabs must be live. If they ain't kicking, they ain't cooking.
2. if you boil them, feed them to the cats. That's all they're good for. Crabs are meant to be steamed!!!
3. Steam them in a big steamer with the stream provided by 1/2 beer (older than 6 months is best - don't waste the good stuff) and 1/2 white vinegar.
4. Layer the crabs as you cover them generously with Old Bay and very course salt.
5. Steam them until they turn bright red. In my steamer that hold about 3 dozen medium Indonesian crabs or 6 dozen Chesapeake Bay blues, it takes about an hour.
6. Pour piping hot crabs onto a table covered in newspapers and enjoy.

Any other way of cooking them is just uncivilized!

 

[CBulla]

I can't believe this post is this long and it hasn't mentioned stone crab claws!