Wednesday, July 9, 2008

GUY'S STEAMED CRABS


My husband, Guy, loves crabs. He dreams about crabs all year. We call him "the crab Guy." He has his own blogspot -- thecrabguy.blogspot.com. Guy set a crab trap at our friend's dock in Pamlico County. He checks it regularly and also crabs over there. Yesterday, he caught half a dozen crabs. We're from New Jersey, where you clean them before you eat them. He cleaned them right at the dock and iced them before he brought them home. Here's what they look like when they're cleaned, iced and ready to be cooked:
In order to cook crabs properly, you need a crab steamer. It's a big pot with a steamer insert.
The crabs are fresh but dead, so you can easily pick them up and put them in the pot. Be sure the water is boiling briskly before the crabs go in; you want lots of steam.
Sprinkle the crabs with Old Bay or Chesapeake Bay Seasoning. Not too much, or they'll be too salty. Cover the pot and let the crabs steam for about 10 minutes. Serve them with apple cider vinegar in little cups. You can sprinkle some more seasoning in the cups like the Maryland people do or just have the the vinegar plain like New Jersey people do. If you want to know how to clean the live crabs, surf over to thecrabguy.blogspot.com and check it out. Guy has a You-Tube video on how to clean crabs. It's not his video, but the method is almost the same, except Guy doesn't cut the crabs in half. He's going to make his own video soon. Oh, and BTW, Guy is selling his adorable crab boards (see the top photo). They're not just adorable, they're also practical. Everyone who uses them loves them, because the board provides a hard surface on which to crack open the crabs. The mallet comes with the board and he may be packaging a set of board, mallet, knife and cup -- still working on it.

1 comment:

SGB said...

So where was my invite?
Tell Guy he needs to cut back on eating shellfish!