[Mando]

ive noticed a whole lot of big crabs lately and i would like to eat em
i have no idea how to cook em or what to eat off of them. ive had legs in resturants but how bout the body part?
thanks,
mando

 

[FishinTheBarge]

This is mostly how I take crabs.....

It is farely simple, once you get the hang of it. What I do is, pull off the claws and save them if they're large enough. Then on the bottom side I pull off the abdomen then by gripping the largest marginal spine, I pull apart the top shell from the bottom shell. Remove guts and gills, then you can procede to use a knife or small spoon to remove the meat from all of the separating sinuses or open spaces. Takes quite a few crabs to make up good amount of meat. Then get you a good recipe for crab meat and make some stuffed flattie or crab cakes or whatever you prefer.
I'm sitting on about 3/4 lb of crab meat, without a flattie to stuff them with............Need to go fishin I guess... Good luck!!

 

[Blue Water Ho]

here ya go

here http://www.blue-crab.org/ ...................................later,Dave

 

[alston4252]

Like FishinTheBarge stated, the majority of the meat is held in pockets of various sizes along the perimeter of the body. Make sure you cook the crabs before extracting the meat. I rip the abdomen off and then use a spoon handle or something small to scoop out the good stuff.

I did a search on the Food Network site the last time I made crab cakes. Here is a link. If you find a recipe that turns out to notably well, then let us know.

http://web.foodnetwork.com/food/web...String=crab+cakes&site=FOOD&searchType=Recipe

Some people purge their crabs prior to cooking. This is accomplished by putting the live crabs in an icechest of freshwater for a length of time. This allows them to excrete various unpleasantries from thier system. I have never done this, but I think I will try it the next time. I am no expert--my crab cleaning days are few and far between--considering the work involved---but this works for me.

alston4252