I've got crabs!!!!!

[Green Aura]

Three of them to be precise, currently boiling in a big pot of water. My neighbour dropped them off earlier, straight from the boat, along with a couple of ?sea bass - silvery bodies, definitely not trout or mackerel.

Woohoo!!!

[MKG]

Careful GA. Leave 'em in there for too long and you'll kill 'em.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Mike

[southeast-isher]

Very nice! So you are in Durness, properly in the Highlands... what's it like there? Would love to see some photos of your place there.

[Green Aura]

Hope they're dead, Mike - we've just eaten one of their legs

[zaxdog]

We are tossing the creel tomorrow so hoping for a few crabs, maybe even a lobster!

Some of the best seafood in the world here so looking forward to some tomorrow (if no luck with the creel, we'll just reel in a few mackerel)!

[Milims]

Must be a week for crabs! You are a lucky lady GA - but we daren't have them in the house as we discovered thaty daugher was severly allergic to them this weekend We also encountered one on the beach today - it was black with satanic red eyes peeping out of the sand Sea bass - now that is an entirely different matter - it's wonderful stuff! I love it blackened with Jamaican seasoning. I'm quite envious of you!

[Green Aura]

Durness is wonderful SE-i !!!!!

Have a Google - nowhere like it - and your neighbours give you crabs

[southeast-isher]

Durness is wonderful SE-i !!!!!

Have a Google - nowhere like it - and your neighbours give you crabs

i wanna live in the Highlands!

[spider8]

You must be very close to your neighbours for them to give you crabs............sorry, lowering the tone again . Yes, Durness is lovely southeast-isher. Only been there once but want to go back and explore and pop in and see Green Aura Don't know when that will be though, Dave won't be driving anywhere for a while .

[southeast-isher]

Orkney looks nice too! ;-)

[Paul_C]

ahhh crab. its a rare week when i dont eat one.

now which species of crab? redback edible? spider? blue velvet?

remeber dont shatter the shell to get the meat. all you do is introduce splinters into it. ypu want to just crack it, i use the back of a cleaver, but a tack hammer works well.

the carapce honycombe needs picking slowly before you attempt to split it apart to get the remainders and a tip is to split it and then put the second wind of meat into a second bowl and finger through it to find the shards.

oh and watch the feathers int he claws they are razor sharp (says he with loads of scars on the back of the thumbs to prove it)


oddly i caught a big fighting cock crab when i dived tonight and gave him to my dive buddy. i was wraginling it and he called me away for another one, wich was such a baby it was still in nappys. (think the size they sell in sainsburys) i picked it up to see if there was a larger one bellow it but no that was the one he was on about. then back to the big one and a 10 minute fight to get the buger out and then another 3 to get it into the bag.

atlest the crabs i get have a chance to fight me hand to claw.

[Green Aura]

I think they're just plain old brown crabs, Paul. Very tasty - there were two large ones and a smaller one. We had the smallest, with the claws off one of the large ones and it fed three of us for dinner with salad.

The only problem was I think I overcooked the smaller one because the brown meat was very watery and not very appetising. The cats loved it though! And the white meat was gorgeous. We did find a few bits of shell but not much.

I've frozen the larger crabs whole, without dressing them. Will this be OK or should I have removed dressed them first - oh well too late now.

[Paul_C]

frozen undressed is ok. but id use them within a month or so.

from the sound of the it the smaller one was about 3.5lb (6 -7inches scross the shell) and the larger would be 4-5lb. about 8-10 inches across the back of the shell. the larger ones claws would be about as thick as a mans wrist. <--- not that i eat alot of crab at all and can guage such things :)


the watery brown meat sometimes comes from when they are less full than they need to be ie in the first half of a shell moult cycle. sometimes its also from over cooking. this can be avoided by after removing the crab from the hot water plungingh it into a pan of cold water to stop the cooking. with the added benifit of being able to eat the bugger sooner as well

tbh the best crabs are the ones which are realy dirty loooking with loads of barnicles worms etc on them. these are the ones which are about to shed the shell and grow a new larger one. so its packed full of meat.

also you want a fighty crab not one which just sits there waiting. the fighty crabs are tastyer because they are still fully allive up untill the time they die, the sleepy ones are half dead and the meat isnt as tasty due to the chemical changes.


a crab which is dead before cooking is never as nice. and if it is dead it needs to be cooked within afew hours or else it realy is manky

[MKG]

We never, ever buy crabs. Unless we happen to be visiting Whitby - and I'm perfectly comfortable to give the guys on Sandgate a hearty vote for "possibly the best fishmonger ever".

Pity it's a couple of hours away.

Mike

[Green Aura]

These were most definitely alive, Paul! We had to catch one (that I dropped) as it scuttled across the kitchen floor