How to Cook a Fresh Crab

How to cook a fresh and delicious Dungeness Crab.

Have you ever wanted to cook a crab yourself, but weren’t sure how to? Are you afraid that you would be hurting it? Well, you’re not hurting them, crabs don’t have pain centers as we do, and it’s easy to do at home where you have control over the amount of salt you put into the water. I know I have gotten a few “way too salty” crabs from the market, and while promoted as fresh crab, come to find out it was not only frozen but frozen from last year’s catch. Yes, when the weather is bad, the fisherman don’t go out, so some stores pull from their freezers; people are so intent on getting crab, they don’t even think to question its freshness.

Fresher than fresh, here's how to cook a fresh crab

Some people advocate putting the crab into the freezer first, to put it to sleep. This will stop it from moving, but it will still be alive. You want it to be alive. If it’s dead, it will secrete an enzyme that immediately starts to compromise the meat, so if putting a moving thing into the hot water bothers you, go ahead a throw it into the freezer for 5 minutes or so, but cook it, while it’s still alive.

OK, you’ve cooked your crab, now what should you do with it? Well, you could just eat it plain and enjoy the sweetmeat, or dip it into butter (and add it to your hips and cholesterol readings) or you could try this delicious, and different cooking method.

 Dungeness Crab Tagine