Crab Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crab
Dissolve 1 lb baking soda in 25 gallons water in a large pot and bring to a rolling boil.
Add live crabs and cook for 20 minutes.
Remove crabs and rinse them with cold water.
Pick the meat from the crabs, avoiding shell pieces.
Wash the picked meat in cold 1% brine (1 lb salt to 12½ gallons water) and drain.
Can and exhaust
Pack the meat into enameled or plain cans lined with parchment paper.
Cap the cans, leaving a small hole open.
Exhaust No. 1 cans for 8 minutes and No. 2 cans for 10 minutes, then close the hole.
Process and cool
Process No. 1 cans for 20 minutes at 240°F, then 10 minutes at 250°F.
Process No. 2 cans for 35 minutes at 240°F, then 15 minutes at 250°F.
After processing, cool the cans by running cold water through a pipe at the top of the retort without opening it.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Live crabs
- The main ingredient; the meat is picked out and packed into the cans.
- Salt
- Seasons the picked meat during the brine wash.
The step that matters
Exhaust the cans before closing the hole. Steam from exhausting pushes air out of the can. When the can cools, the remaining steam condenses and forms a partial vacuum that helps seal the lid and limits spoilage-causing air. Closing the hole too early traps air inside.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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