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STEAMED BLUE CRABS |
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For over several centuries, picking crabs has been a tradition in Maryland on
the Chesapeake Eastern Shore.
It should be noted that "picking crab" is not the process of selecting them at the seafood market.
It is the process of picking the delicious meat from inside the shell after cooking. |
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| Ingredients: |
3-6 per person: Fat, heavy, live Blue Crabs.
Water, awash in the bottom of the pot.
1 T Lemon Juice
1 T Vinegar
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1 bag Zatarains Crab Boil
1 Cup Zatarains Crab Boil
1 Cup Old Bay
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| Marketing Procedures: |
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When in the seafood market pick the heaviest, friskiest crabs available; bigger is not always better.
When you get these guys/girls home, put them in the fridge to really calm them down before they face their "final reward".
Should they be allowed to remain at room temperature before steaming, they are likely to take a dim view of going in the pot.
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| Cooking Procedures: |
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In a crab pot (or seafood steamer) with a 2" grate in the bottom, bring the water, lemon juice, vinegar and Zatarains bag to a rolling boil.
Combine the cups of Zatarains and Old Bay in a bowl.
As each of the live crabs are added (under protest) to the pot (use tongs, not fingers!), sprinkle liberally with the spicy stuff, forcibly restoring the lid to the pot, preventing escape.
Should they inadvertently get free and hit the kitchen floor, it would be advisable to be wearing shoes and have the dog in another room!
After all are safely in the pot, steam for 20 minutes.
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| Eating Procedures: |
Take about a week's worth of newspaper and spread it across the table top.
Accessories on the table include cutting boards, meat mallets, nut/crab crackers and small seafood forks.
Nearby, provide one or more large rolls of paper towels.
As soon as the crabs are cool enough to handle, take the biggest one and rip off all the legs.
The six little legs don't have much meat except for what may be pulled from the body when removing.
The two claws (Lyd says they're called Chelepeds) are full of great meat which is released with some applied force from the meat mallet and/or the nut cracker.
The next step is to flip the body over and pull on the pull tab. (That's really hard to explain unless you've seen one.)
The body may then be separated into the top shell (which may have some fat in it) and the bottom shell.
The fat stuck to the top shell is delicious (Lyd snorts at this opinion and offers a "Yuck" in response).
The bottom shell has the mother lode.
The gills, called dead men's fingers, need to be discarded.
The remaining bottom shell needs to be scavenged for every morsel of crab meat.
Wash your hands in the kitchen sink and proceed to the next crab.
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| Notes: |
2014-05-26: A dozen served on Memorial Day with
Cream of Crab soup.
2013-07-08: We enjoyed 18 at our house, with Buddy in the other room so he wouldn't consume the small bits of shell that tend to fly across the room.
2012-07-02: We invited Margaret over to our house for this event.
2009-08-03: For our 35th anniversary, Margaret treated us to crabs in her kitchen.
In 1995, We picked blue crabs when Sergei Gordenkov visited from Murmansk, Russia. That experience was less than satisfactory. The crab had little taste, but
Sergei's facial expressions were priceless.
When the meal is finished, roll up the newspaper, shells, paper towels and other debris. Bag in a large garbage bag and take it away to a dumpster.
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12/05/2014
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