Cooking the Crab

Brown edible crab is delicious. Very meaty and sweet, Mama Wong and I cooked these tasty crustaceans this evening. We pre-ordered the crabs from a restaurant in Chinatown, then dad and I went to collect them. 

Before preparing the crab, peel and chop two small onions into quarters. Fill a large pot (big enough to fit your crabs completely) with water, salt and add the onions with a few bay leaves. The onions and the bay leaves will reduce any 'fishy' crab smell and also provide flavour for a soup base. Mama Wong indicated she will be making 'Bún riêu' (a yummy Vietnamese crab noodle soup) and the base will be perfect for that!

Quickly and firmly, kill the crab by piercing it through the abdomen with a sharp knife. Killing the crab prevents it from releasing unwanted fluids into your boiling water (which you may want to use later for soup). Drain the released liquids. Some remove the crab 'tail' but we didn't here. If you do, you will lose some of the precious dark meat into the water. If you're not removing the tail, you must carefully press along the small duct under the tail to remove the feces.

Next, we clean the crab. We like to use those airline toothbrushes as it can get to those hard-to-reach places. Be thorough. There is usually a lot of mud and sand stuck between the legs and on the the bottom of the carapace. Plunge the crab in a tub of cold water a few times to help remove the dirt.

Once clean, place the crabs into the boiling water. Once the water begins bubbling again, cover and leave for 15-20 minutes. If your crabs are smaller, then roughly 15 minutes is fine. If your crabs were massive like ours, then 22 minutes is fine.

Before the crab is ready, you will notice small fleshy parts in your water. It looks a lot like egg white. This is just the meat that has escaped the shell. You can extract this and place it into a bowl. We can use this later for the 'Bún riêu' dish.