SEAFOOD PREPARATION COOKING & RECIPES.

Blue Swimmer & Mud Crabs 

Handling, Cooking, and Eating.

(copyright 1998-1916 Geoff Childs)

We have found from experience that by far the best flavour is achieved by following these simple techniques.

This method of handling and cooking will result in a crab where the body meat is every bit as good, if not better than, the usually preferred Main nippers and legs. This technique also results in a much easier and more pleasant way to eat crabs.

Firstly it is important to take some care in handling a freshly caught Crab , if they are all thrown into a bucket  or bag alive and all together they  will attack and fight each other and become extremely stressed this, in turn, causes  chemical changes in the crab’s body which take away from the flavour and the crab dies a slow stressful death. 

A much better and more humane method of handling is to put the crab straight into ice water (slurry) where the crab will go to sleep unstressed in less than one minute.

When onboard our cruising yacht where we only have a very small fridge/freezer and therefore is too inconvenient to make ice we put the freshly caught crab into a bucket,by itself, covered with a wet shade cloth and leave the crab in this covered bucket for about 5-10 minutes to quieten and calm down then pop it into our freezer.

Cleaning and preparing the crab for cooking is the single most important

step in our experience

.

A whole cooked crab in its shell may look appealing on the dinner plate BUT  it is messy to eat, difficult to eat and the body meat flavour is inferior to that of the meat in the main nippers.

All the gut (custard) should be removed before cooking. Cut crab in two(between the eyes -down the middle- to between the back flippers-we use a Tomahawk or a Meat Cleaver to do this)

You should now have two halves each consisting of one main nipper, half of the body and remaining small legs. Remove from the flap upward all top body shell, clean / brush/scrape all the gut custard and non-edible bits from each half then a final quick rinse with clean salt or fresh water. Originally when we first tried breaking the Crab into two halves before

Cooking, we were worried that the meat might become waterlogged however this was not the case.

Most importantly, because the crab’s meat  is not cooked in its own gut/custard, the flavour of the body meat is as good as if not better than the usually preferred nippers - As well, the risk of Diarrhea is vastly reduced and the dining process is cleaner, easier and more civilized - but more on that later.

There is another very tasty way to cook crabs – by ”steaming.” As before the preparation is the same “clean before cooking”.

Put a small amount of water into a cooker, place  steaming basket in the cooker , then place crabs, sliced lemon, lemon juice and chopped garlic over the to be delicious crabs.

Bring to the boil reduce heat to simmer for 8-10 minutes with the lid on. Then turn crabs if necessary ( depending on size and quantity).

It has also been reported to me, by some people, that piercing mud crab's brain through the body shell, between, but a bit back from the eyes, with something like a  screwdriver hammered then wriggled around a bit, will dispatch them quickly.
And others have said they turn the crab upside down then chop them in halves
with a hammered meat cleaver for instant death?