Picking Blue Crabs

Techniques for picking and cleaning the meat from a steamed hard-shelled crab are as different as the people who catch them. Some people go at it with a mallet, crushing all the delicate membrane into the succulent meat and leaving too much waste behind. Others take their time, watch how their neighbors extract large juicy chunks of the crab, and find their own unique way of getting the most meat for their labor. The masters of picking steamed crabs rarely talk...they eat!

Here are the basics, with variations you may wish to try, whether you are an old hand or just beginning. If you are picking crabs for a recipe or for storage, put more meat in the bowl than in your mouth!

First, cover the table with heavy brown paper, or newspapers. You may also want a bowl, a paring knife, a cutting board for hammering and cracking the claws, a small wooden mallet, paper towels, refreshments, and a lined trash can by the table.

Place the crab on its back, belly up. Notice the apron in the middle of the crab body. This photo is of a male crab, a female crab apron looks very different. Take the point of a knife, or use your fingers to lift up the apron. Pull it back away from the body, break it off and discard.

Turn the crab over, belly down and facing away from you. To take the top shell off, put your thumb or a knife under the back edge of the shell and lift it up, off, and discard.

Next, with your fingers or a knife, scrape off the six gills (lungs, sometimes called the dead man) on either side of the open body. These gills are not edible, so discard.

The yellow, green, red, orange, or brownish-colored material found just behind the mouth area is the fat, heart, and/or the eggs (roe) of the crab and is good to eat. Press down and break off the mouth area and discard.

At this point, the experts diverge in opinion about whether to pull the claws and all of the legs off to eat later. I like to have them on for something to hold on to when I pick up the crab to break it in half. There are other reasons to leave the appendages on the body, as you will see. You can also use a knife to cut the crab, as shown in the photo.

Meat under the membrane cover on each half of the crab can be exposed by removing this cover with a knife. Or you may slice, or break lengthwise through the center of each half without removing the membrane.

Each of these methods will expose large succulent chunks of meat, which may be removed with your fingers or a knife.

Everyone has heard of backfin crab meat! This is why I like to leave the legs on, and prefer not to go beyond breaking the crab in half.

Hold the swimming paddle just beyond the joint on the body and break it free, the huge backfin meat pops out, with almost no membrane. You can pull each leg and the claw off in this fashion to be rewarded with chucks of meat.

Expose the meat under the membrane covering by breaking or cutting it. The tender chunks can be removed with your fingers, a fork, or a nut pick. Make sure that your take out all of the membranes before placing the meat in your bowl (for storage, or recipes) or before eating.

I like to save the claws to eat last because their flavor is so unique! It also gives me a chance to perfect my skill in getting the meat out whole.

Put the claw on the table (on a cutting board, if necessary) with the inside of the pincers facing up. Place a metal blade just behind the joint where the pincers join, and hold the blade steady.

Rap the top edge of the blade with a mallet, just enough to score the shell of the claw. Hold both sides of the claw in each hand. The hand holding the pincer should have the thumb just below the score mark, with the forefinger knuckle curved behind the back side, also below the score mark. Snap the pincers off. The meat should come out whole. Put it in your mouth, bite down to the membrane, pull between your teeth to drag the meat off into your mouth. If it doesn't work the first time, dig the meat out with a knife and try again! The same technique is used for the upper arm of the claw.

When all the crabs have been cleaned and picked, whatever you didn't eat may be used to prepare the dish of choice or else frozen. About eighteen to twenty crabs when cleaned will produce a pound of crab meat (two cups). If there are some crabs left over; claws, legs, and even half bodies can be thrown in a pot to start crab soup! See Recipes.

A chef once told me that if the swimming paddle joints are crushed a little and thrown in the soup pot, the flavor is superb! Norm Dreisch, of Harris Cove Bed n' Boat, likes to start a crab soup broth by boiling out the "innards" from the carapace shell, plus all that roe and fat from the center of the crab. Makes a wonderful base (especially if there is seasoning on the shells).

The best thing about having crabs for dinner is the cleanup! Be sure to look over the table and take everything out that doesn't get thrown away. Then just roll up the paper and put it in the trash bag. If at all possible, take the bag outside to a varmint proof can, as it will smell up the house by the next morning!