Blue crabs can be cooked in different ways, and are a good catch for their sweet and delicately flavored white meat. When choosing a blue crab, you have to choose an alive blue crab that looks for the freshest ones, and if cooked, look for a fresh, flavorful, and sweet aroma. Backfin or lump is the best grades, whereas flakes have small pieces of meat. Generally, a pound of blue crabs per person is enough if buying a lump or flaked crab meat, and it is important to know this fact because blue crab is really expensive. Blue crabs have hard shells that turn bright red after cooking. Blue crabs must are travelled in an ice chest because they should be always moist and cool until they are ready to be cooked. Never buy or cook a dead crab as it may be contaminated or poisoned, and don’t add water because they will drown.
A traditional and easy way of cleaning blue crabs involves boiling it first then cleaning it later on. You need an inch of water, beer or vinegar and place the steamer rack inside a huge pot and place the crabs live. If a long boiling session takes so much of your time, you can stab the blue crabs or shock them by placing them in ice water before boiling. When it comes to placing the blue crabs on the steamer rack, place the blue crabs with their belly-side down, and add some seasoning. A half bushel can take up to forty-five minutes to cook, whereas half-dozen blue crabs may take only twelve minutes. Remove the crabs from the steamer and add some seasoning as preferred, and serve it for some butter dipping and picking. If you want cooking using the traditional method, the seasoning should be on the outside or on the shell and nothing gets inside the crab meat. When it comes to cleaning blue crabs, remove and throw leaf-like and spongy gills and rinse the greenish-brown colored guts with a running water. Don’t forget to break and remove mandibles, which are the blue crab’s mouthparts.
You can avoid claws falling off while cooking by either poking a pointed and sharp object through the head of the crab, or you can stun each blue crab by immersing it in ice-water for several minutes before cooking. One way to make a blue crab seasoning include combining three tablespoons paprika, two tablespoons salt, one to two tablespoons garlic powder, one teaspoon black pepper, one tablespoon cayenne pepper, one tablespoon dried leaf oregano, and one tablespoon dried leaf thyme, mix them and store in an airtight container. You can try making your very own crab and avocado salad, Cajun fish salad, and Nicoise salad, feel free to check our homepage or website for more details.
