How to Clean Crabs
Posted on August 19th, 2009 by Marck
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Many people like eating crabs because of their flavor, texture, and health benefits. One of the more popular shellfish foods on the market, crabs can be cooked as they are with the shells on, but you can always clean up a crab to make crab cakes, omelettes, and other tasty dishes. Here’s how you can clean a crab.
Whole Crabs
Crabs sold on the market are usually cleaned up and ready for boiling, cooking, and picking. If you pick up a bunch of crabs from the local wharf, though, you may need to leave them in a water bucket for a few hours to get rid of dust and other particles that you don’t want found in your picked crab meat. Once a clean crab is boiled and cooked, it is ready to be picked.
Tools
To clean and pick a crab, you need the following tools:
- Wooden kitchen mallet
- Lobster pick or toothpick
- Fork
- Nutcracker (if needed)
- Bowl
- Thin-mesh sieve
Steps
Follow these steps to clean and pick a crab:
- Remove the claws and legs of the boiled crab and set the crab bodies aside.
- Crack the legs and claws, and pick out as much of the meat as you can. Pick the crab over a bowl covered with a sieve to save what you can of the crab’s juices.
- Crack open the claws with the edge of a fork or a nutcracker, and pick out the meat.
- The crab body may be cracked open at the edge with a mallet, or you can pry it open with a fork.
- Remove the roe and keep it on a separate container. The roe is very delicious and useful in Oriental-style dishes.
- Remove the “gills” of the crabs and throw them away.
- Pick out the crab meat from the body of the crab. Pick out as much as you can, but try to avoid breaking bits of shell into the meat, because they’re difficult to pick out.
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