Peggy Strickland

How to Clean and Prepare Live Blue Crabs

You have been fortunate enough to capture live blue crabs on a coastal vacation, or have purchased live crabs for a feast.

Now, what do you do with them?

Blue crabs are among Nature’s most succulent salt-water creatures.  Crabs are bottom feeders and will eat a variety of sea creatures, living or dead, decaying vegetation or discarded food.

That must be what makes them so delicious!

Cleaning techniques for crabs depend on how you plan to cook them.  For a “crab-boil”, no advance cleaning is necessary.

Ideally for a “cooking” for just a few servings, you will have a dozen or so fresh, large blue crabs cooling in a bucket.

However; many are the times at the coast, I have boiled up a single crab for a child, proud of his first catch and anxious to savor his prize.

A crab chef must not be squeamish or of overly tender sensibilities!  The freshest crabs are dropped live into a huge pot of boiling water.

For this operation, make use of a pair of long tongs or heavy gloves, as the crush of a large claw can be extremely painful and damaging to the flesh and bone of fingers.  Pry a crab loose from its fellows, (One will often be tightly grasped by the claws of another, and likewise, will grab onto the tongs with its own claws).  If it helps your conscience, verbally express your appreciation for the crab’s ultimate sacrifice and drop it in!  (Also, be reassured by the fact that few crabs live past three years).

I prefer cooking for a fish fry or crab-boil outdoors, over the open flame of a propane fish cooker.  This method avoids the fishy smell in your living quarters, plus, like any cookout is just more pleasurable.   But, if you do not possess an outdoor cooker, the kitchen stove works fine!

As the crabs cook they turn a deep red color.  Boil for approximately eight to ten minutes.  The water for cooking can be unseasoned, salted or infused with a spicy seasoned crab-boil mix.  Such a mix can be purchased in any grocery store, loose-leaf or in a single boiling bag.  Ingredients for making your own mixture might include cayenne pepper, bay leaves, dill, coriander, basil, mustard seed, oregano, allspice, lemon zest, or a combination of your own choosing.  Add directly to the water if you don’t mind bits of seasoning in your crab meat, or wrap tightly in cheesecloth.  Some cooks believe vinegar and/or lemon juice added to the boiling water makes removal of the shell easier.

Removal of the shell is messy work.  Spread newspaper or paper towels.  Pour off the water from the pot and allow the crabs to cool enough to handle.  *If you are at the coast, in a house near a canal, dumping the shells truly poses no problem and provides tiny morsels for seabirds, bait fish and crustaceans.

The two large claws are succulent and must be broken off cleanly, so as not to lose any of the delicious meat inside.  The multiple legs of the crab do not provide enough meat for eating, and are tossed away.  If, however, a juicy morsel is pulled from the body with the leg, do not toss it aside.  This is the perfect opportunity for tasting.  Eat it!

A factoid regarding blue crabs:  The male blue crab is identifiable by the shape of the groove of his abdomen, which resembles the letter “T.”  The female blue crab has a grooved abdomen more in the shape of a triangle which can be pointed or gently rounded, depending on the age of the crab.  Soft shelled crabs are molting crabs, a different story requiring different handling, cleaning and preparation.  For the purpose of this recipe, we are using mature, hard-shelled blue crabs.

For cleaning your crabs, the grooved portion of the shell must be pried up with a sharp pointed instrument, (or very strong pointed fingers).

Male blue crab, showing the shell portion which must be pried up

Then, grasping the upper and lower halves of the shell with the fingers of each hand, pull apart the two halves with your thumbs.  This exposes the non-edible portions inside the body of the crab which must be removed.  The gills, colloquially, are called “dead man’s fingers.”  While not actually poisonous, they are tough and not at all delectable, and should be discarded.

Also discard a leathery piece near the mouth which is the stomach.  Wash the body cavity with a water hose or beneath the faucet.  You will be left with a clean, white shell in which you can see little compartments stuffed with succulent white meat.  This shell must be cracked so that you can carefully pick out the meat.  Nut crackers and picks work perfectly for this task.

Typically, do all the cleaning at once so you will have a luscious pile of white crab meat to eat or use in other recipes.  Crab meat is wonderful warm or cold, in salad, gumbo, bisque, chowder, crab cakes, and more.  My family’s preference is to eat the morsels dipped in warm, drawn butter, and served with baked potato or cheese grits, and salad.  Decadently delicious!

If you plan to fry crab bodies, you must do all the same cleaning noted above, until you have reached the clean, white inner shell, but before boiling the whole crabs.   Dredge these raw bodies in seasoned cornmeal/flour mix, or prepare un-breaded.  Deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown.  Pick apart the inner compartments to reach the moist tidbits.

As mentioned earlier, another way to fry crabs is to use “soft-shell” crabs.  In that case, you would eat the entire body of the crab, fried, legs, warts and all.

May you indeed be fortunate enough to sample this savory meal, and often!