How long to boil cleaned crab

We all need to be super safe when preparing and enjoying seafood. The information on this post is a mix of my own personal experiences and information pulled from credible web sources. Make sure you have everything on your checklist in order.

Mix in the salt and any seasoning to the water, fire up the burner and get the water to a rapid and rolling boil. Once the water is at a rapid and rolling boil you are ready to add the crab! Adding the Dungeness Crab to the boil will cause the water temp to drop significantly. I like using a large pot with a lot of water because I can drop in a few crab without having the water temp drop too much.

Timing is everything. I usually give the crab 12 to 15 minutes in a boil. If the boil dies when I drop in the crab and it takes a couple minutes to get going again I will give it a little longer. Once you go through this process a few times you will have a good feel for it. Once the Dungeness Crab have spent enough time in the boil cooking, it is time to remove them from the pot. I love my cooker setup because it has a strainer basket that can lift everything out quickly.

Be extremely careful when pulling out the crab and avoid getting burned by the steam. You may want to turn off the burner a few minutes before you pull the crab out to kill the boil. Once I remove the Dungeness Crab from the boil, I will dump them in an ice water bath. The water inside the crab shells will continue to boil after being removed from the cooker and it is important to get that temperature down immediately.

Place the Dungeness Crab in the ice water bath until the shells are warm to the touch. Remove from the ice bath and get ready to feast! You can clean Dungeness Crab before or after you boil them. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors.

In This Article Expand. Boil Crabs. Steam Crabs. After all, fitted with hard-to-crack shells and protective pinchers, crabs are intimidating creatures, always ready to put up a fight. While crab comes in many forms, there are three options for purchasing the shelled sea creatures: still alive, pre-cooked fresh or frozen, or processed and canned. For the freshest possible crab, purchasing still-kicking crabs straight from the water is the best bet. Live crabs should be cooked on the same day they were purchased, but can be stored in an open container covered with wet paper or towels in a refrigerator or freezer for a few hours before cooking.

Fresh pre-cooked crabmeat can be stored in the refrigerator for two days before it should be prepared or frozen. Check the printed expiration date and storage instructions for any canned and processed crab meat, as these will vary from product to product.

When purchasing live crab there are a couple of options for guaranteeing the crab is safe to consume. The first is to drop the live crab directly into boiling water, which will kill any bacteria before it has a chance to release into the crabmeat. Other people wear latex gloves to protect themselves from the heat of the shells.

The "apron" on a crab is a triangle of shell on the bottom of the crab on males it is smaller, narrower, and more pointed; on females it is bigger, wider, and more rounded. Remove the apron by grabbing the point towards the front of the crab and pulling it off. After you've pulled off the apron, you will see a small hole between the body and the top shell, or carapace, at the back of the crab.

Hold the body with one hand and pull off the top shell by grabbing the shell where that small hole is. The liquid that will come out is called "crab butter" it's the fat from the back of the crab and many people save it for use in soups or even as a dipping sauce for the crab itself.

If you want to reserve the crab butter, make sure to hold the crab upside-down and pull the body up and out of the top shell so the shell collects the liquid. Most people discard the carapace, but some people like to clean the shell is use it to serve crab salad.

Once the top shell is gone, you'll see the crab's insides. Along the top are two rows of opaque, feathery gills. These are not tasty. Simply pull them all off and discard them. The mandibles, at the front of the crab, need to be removed—simply snap the two pointy things to break them away from the crab and discard them. The remaining parts of the crab besides the shell that you don't want to eat are the guts.