Boiled Crabs
Ingredients
Directions
Steam the crabs
Place crabs in a large kettle with hot salted water.
Cover the kettle and weigh it down to keep steam in.
Steam for 20 minutes.
Check if the backs can be easily removed; if not, steam longer.
Clean and serve
Remove small claws, backs, and any material between the backs and inner shell.
Crack large claws and serve with the rest of the crab.
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
The step that matters
Checking doneness before cleaning. Crabs that are undercooked hold onto their backs and meat tightly, so the backs will not lift cleanly. Testing whether the backs come off easily shows whether the meat has set and loosened enough to clean and eat safely.
“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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