Before cooking, however, there are some steps you needto take to make sure your crabs are safe to eat.That's mostly due to the fact that blue crabs are smallerthan most other edible crabs. Snow and Alaskan kingcrabs have lots of meat in their legs, but this isn't thecase with blue crabs.
Fill the pot 3/4 full with water, and bring to a rollingboil over an intense flame. Add the blue crabs, coverthe pot, and boil until all of the shells turn red, and themeat is no longer translucent, about 20 minutes. Stir thecrabs occasionally as they boil to ensure evencooking.
If you are just serving crabs, a good rule ofthumb is about 8-12 crabs per person. If you are servingother food, we estimate about a 1/2 dozen crabs per person.To put it in short, a bushel of large crabs will feedapprox. 8 people.
The coconut crab is eaten by Southeast Asians andPacific Islanders and is considered a delicacy and an aphrodisiac.The pincers of the coconut crab are powerful enough to causenoticeable pain to a human; furthermore, the coconut crabwill often keep its hold for extended periods oftime.
Parts of a Crab
- Claw or chela.
- Antenna.
- Eyes.
- Dactyl.
- Carpus.
- Cepalothorax.
- Abdomen.
- Swimming legs.
Generally, blue, snow, and Dungeness crabshave a similar salty-sweet flavor, but differences in tastewill occur based on factors like the saltiness of the waterwhere they are caught, how they are processed, and how they arecooked. The claw and leg meat will have a more intense flavor thanlarge body pieces.
A crab's gills are not toxic. They just aren'tvery pleasant to eat. They don't taste terribly good and don'treally have any meat on them, but if you want to eat them,they won't hurt you. Very few parts of any ediblecrab are going to be toxic.
Brown Crab Meat. Brown crab meat is foundin the shell cavity at the top of the crab. It has adistinctive rich flavour that makes it ideal for sauces. Brownmeat has a higher natural fat content but is extremely high inOmega-3.
The Dead Man's Fingers are located right belowthe carapace or hard upper shell of the crab. Notreally..most folks who eat crabs are fully aware of whatthey will see once that shell is removed! Although, somefolks do believe that these organs are poisonous andwill kill you if you eat them.
When eating soft shell crabs, do you eatthe crabs guts? In Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia (TheDelMarVa), you generally eat those innards,which we call “fat”. When we cleansoftshells for cooking we first cut the “face”off along with the “sandbags”….this really meanscut the mouthparts and crop out.
The affected crab meat contains a bacteria calledVibrio parahaemolyticus, which has caused at least 12 individualsmostly in the Mid-Atlantic region to fall ill with serioussymptoms, including chronic vomiting, severe diarrhea, anddangerously high fevers.
Not all crabs are safe to eat, however, and a fewcan carry lethal doses of toxins. So far, only a smallnumber of species of this family are known to be toxic, butit is a good idea to avoid eating them regardless. Thesecrabs are not truly poisonous and the crabs donot produce the toxins themselves.
The intertidal crabs can breathe easily both inwater as well as on land. When in water, the gills help inrespiration. On land, the cuticles near the legs of crabhelp in the absorption of oxygen. The terrestrial crabs aremore likely to stay on land.
When a male and female crab mate, many femaledecapod crabs can store the male sperm until her eggs areready to be released. When the eggs are released, the stored spermflows over them and they become fertilised. The female crabholds the fertilised eggs in a big spongy mass between itsabdominal flap and the body.
