How To Eat Crab Legs
Worldwide, there are many different varieties of crab, from really tiny ones to quite large ones too.
When it comes to learning how best to eat crabs, then their size doesn’t really matter – the same basic techniques will work for all of them.
So, the first you need to do, obviously, is cook your crab, and the most common method, for fresh crabs at least, is boiling them.
But how do you tell when they’re ready?
Well, one clue is if the crab floats, rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan.
Secondly, a well-cooked crab will change colour – from a kind of gray to more like a red.
But what if you’ve bought pre-cooked or frozen crab? You can still boil the meat if you like, but you have other choices available too, such as broiling or grilling them – anything will do, provided you make sure that the crab meat is thoroughly heated before you eat it.
Now, there’s one more thing to think about before you can tuck into that delicious crab, and that’s the dip.
One very popular side dish is just melted butter – simple, but it works really well, and if you like the taste of lemon, then you can squeeze a bit of that in too.
What’s very important, however, is that you have your dip prepared and ready beforehand, since crab loses its heat pretty quickly, and you won’t want to be wasting time, letting it go cold, while you prepare your sauce.
Don’t forget too that you can always refrigerate cooked crab, to eat later, although in our experience, this won’t usually be an issue.
So, now that we’ve got that all out of the way, we’re ready to start eating our crab.
Not sure where to start?
Well, the first thing you’re going to need to do is to take hold of one of the legs, right at the base where it’s connected to the body.
Then, you need to give it a gentle twist as you pull it away from the body.
Next, you need to separate the different sections of the crab leg, one by one, and for this, you may well need the help of a few tools.
Although designed originally for lobsters, lobster crackers can be a real boon here, especially with larger crabs, like King Crabs, since these varieties can have a really tough outer shell.
These crackers are shaped a bit like some types of nut cracker – i.e. they’re like two pieces of metal, hinged at one end, which you squeeze together, around the crab leg. This will make the shell “pop open” so that you can then extract the tender crab meat from inside.
Here’s a useful tip too: if you crack open one end of a long crab leg, you’ll find it much easier to then pull or push the meat out from that part of the leg.
Another useful utensil is called a “picker”, and this tool was designed solely for helping you to eat various types of shellfish.
A picker sort of resembles a tool that dentists use – it’s long, metal, and has a sharp, pointed end, so that you can either cut through part of the crab’s shell, and/or split the shell so that you can get the meat out.
If you don’t have such tools handy, then you can always break the crab legs by hand, although you do need to be careful here – crabs can have sharp, teeth-like bumps on some of their legs, so to avoid cutting yourself, it’s advisable to wrap the leg in something like a tea towel first.
Some people prefer to eat the meat as they remove it from the leg, while others prefer to get all of the messy stuff out of the way first, and then eat all of the meat in one go.
Either way, don’t forget to dip it in the sauce you prepared earlier, and you’ll probably need a finger bowl or something to clean your fingers and hands with once you’re finished.
So, there you have it. It’s relatively simple – you break off a leg, crack open a section of that leg and remove the meat, using whatever tools are appropriate for the job (crackers, pickers or your bare hands), dip it in your sauce, and eat it.
You’ll get the hang of it in no time, and you’ll certainly have fun practicing!
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You don’t have to live by the coast to enjoy fresh crab!
The crab tasted pretty good and it was only $7.99 a pound for a 9 pound monster which is a great deal. It was a lot more flavorful than the crabs I usually eat but I wasn’t really in the mood and didn’t have too much of it.
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