How To Clean And Cook Blue Crab

Spoon mixture into lettuce leaves and serve with reserved dressing.

Rinse the inside of the crab out and clean out the innards from the center of the shell. Cut the claws at the joint. The flesh from the claws holds together much better. Set a steamer basket in the pot and the crabs in the basket or if you have a lot of crabs simply pile them in.

There will be a hole remaining at the head area where you have taken off the apron and you can pry off the whole top shell called the carapace. Break the crab in half by bending it in the center. Hold the crab upside down and lift the flap near its backside. There are just two easy steps to cleaning blue crabs this way.

Next lay the crab on its back and remove the abdomen by wedging a knife underneath it. Drain crabmeat mixture reserving 1 4 cup dressing. Put crabs in an extra large bait bucket and keep submerged. Take a knife and gently pry up the triangular piece of shell called the apron and remove it altogether.

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Clean all of the crabs you plan on cooking. Cover and chill 8 hours. Cleaning the cooked crab star by flipping the cooked crab onto its back. When the water is boiling drop your crabs into the pot.

How to clean blue crabs. Crack off the top of the shell clean out the guts and gills the easiest way to do this is to blast it all out with a hose this leaves lots of delicious meat in the corners of the body in addition to in the claws and legs. Many people like to throw live crabs right into a pot of boiling water to cook. Here s my tried and true method for cooking blue crab.

Press firmly under the flap with your thumb and pry the crab apart. Then use your fingers to pull out the gills and scoop out the innards. Once your blue crabs have been cleaned and cooked you might want to save the claws for other recipes like sautéed crab fingers or crab cocktails. Remove the crabs from the pot and let sit until cool enough to handle.

Cover the pot and steam until the crabs are cooked through 10 minutes for small blue crabs and 15 for larger dungeness and up to 20 minutes for even bigger crabs. Cooking crabs whole like that leaves a mess to deal with when eating. Put an couple inches of water into a big sturdy pot. If you are going to use the claws you ll want to break them off at the first joint.