Saturday, February 20, 2016

How to Clean a Crab (and other unsavory things that become savory with work)

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I mentioned last week that it's crab season on our coast. We're not near the coast at all (about 7-9 hours, depending on the route you take, highway or back road). So we don't usually eat seafood because by the time it makes it here to the other side of the state, it's not really as fresh as I'd like it to be. And you know I'm all about fresh food! (Oregon is 98,000 square miles and ranked 9th largest.... way behind TEXAS, of course!) 
 So, these babies started showing up in our grocery store by the mountain. Glorious, cheap, crabs! And although the seafood assistant will crack and clean them for you, my twelve year old boy loves that job. (Ah, twelve year old boys are the best for the dirty jobs. They look forward to them!) Another reason we keep our crab cleaning skills up is for our yearly beach visit. Seafood is cheap there but it's usually sold in the outdoor market. They don't hold your hand as you pick out your dinner, and they don't clean it for you. We've bought tuna, etc right off boats in the harbor. We also have a year's fishing license, and then when the tide is low we pull mussels off the rocks, dig for clams, or hang a crab trap off the pier. I know you can just buy it in a restaurant and that's absolutely a fine way to proceed. BUT if you lay awake at night wondering if your family would survive the zombie apocalypse, or like to prepare your own food from scratch, keep reading!
                                            
So, let's begin! When crabbing, make sure to follow the local rules and regulations. That usually includes size and sex (nothing under a certain size, and no females). This is a male and you can tell by the shape of the "apron". Males usually have a shape somewhat like the Washington Monument. And females are shaped like the US Capital dome. (Baby females have a sort of triangle, and are probably too small to keep.)
 Using a knife, pop open the apron and pull down.
                                                 
Flipping the crab over, grip both sides of the carapace and remove the top.
                                              
Inside you can see the gills, the innards, etc. Some people save the top and serve the crab dish inside. If you want to do this you'll need to scrub it really well with soap, and then leave it in the sun to dry, preferably for several days. We just toss ours. :)
                                              
Inside the middle is a yellow gunk called "crab butter'. This is like the crab's liver and filters the toxin from the system. Some people carefully collect this and use it in soup or the crab dish because it's a very strong flavoring, like anchovy paste (but not as salty). I've had dishes made with crab butter and although it's good, I don't feel comfortable eating something that filters toxins so... I discard this. Of course, I don't eat liver, either, which plenty of people feel is perfectly okay. It's really up to you whether you feel it's safe to eat/cook with.
                                
Another shot of the gills, crab butter, mandibles. All this should be removed.
 At this point, you can easily crack the crab in half. Take each half and rinse under warm water.
 You can either serve it like this, half a crab for everybody, or you can continue cracking the legs/pincer, remove the meat and use in a recipe.
I hope you've enjoyed my crab cleaning tutorial! Next week, we'll skin a squirrel! Just kidding... although my 1950's Joy of Cooking does have a page on that. I think I've shared it before.
And now, for unsavory things that become savory... A lot of revisions went into this book but sometimes you just have to make the hard cuts to craft a better story! Some days I felt revising this book was like cleaning crab butter. Ugh! But I'm absolutely thrilled with the way this story turned out and I'm giddy with anticipation for release day!
But finally, my fifth book in the Cane River Romance series is up for preorder and at a special .99 until release day! If you've already picked up Book One, which is FREE, then there is Book Two, Book Three, and Book Four!
Ok, until next time, everyone! Have a great weekend and I hope spring is finally starting to pop where you are!

16 comments:

  1. LOL My daughter does the Zombie apocalypse worrying for me so I skipped right over the how-to shots. I think I need to borrow a 12 year old boy to shell crabs. Or move to Maryland.

    Okay, I'll come back later and read more carefully. I spent too many years passing over the crabs at the fish market because I didn't know what to do with them. Now lobsters, those I can do!

    Thanks for educating us, Mary Jane. Can I just say how much I love the covers for this series!!!

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    1. Thanks, Cate! I made those myself. A few are still the ones I bought but I finally taught myself Photoshop so I can save on covers. :)

      And I've never cleaned a crab myself. I've always had the shopkeeper do it for me. Until I had kids who wanted to do it at home, I just... yuck... didn't want to get my hands in there!

      And kudos on raising a worrier. That means your whole family will survive! Haha! I have one that worries enough for all eight of us. He helps me plan our trips. We've never been caught out... except for when I killed my phone last year and our company doesn't have offices on the west side of the state. But he couldn't have predicted that so, I'll give him a pass. LOL

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  2. I had to close my eyes for most of that post! Opened them in time to see the info about your new book release! Woot! I don't read many ebooks but I might have to make an exception. :-) And Spring? What is that? We have mountains of snow and more still coming.

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    1. The first is also available in paper and the others will be available in paper by the en of the month, Kav. :) I'm not an ebook reader, either.

      EEEEK! Mountains of snow??? Poor you!

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  3. Dinner with friend on Whidbey Island. Newspaper on the table, crab, butter and a nice loaf of fresh bread. YUMMMY~

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    1. Whidbey Island! I have a friend who lives there and it was the most amazing experience to visit her. It's a different kind of coastline that our sandy Oregon beaches. Some of the same rocks, but the sense of the place is much different. The pines and the rhododendrons, just lovely. So relaxing!

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  4. Friends with an s. Sorry I was eating a burger and typing.

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  5. Oh, wow! I don't think I would have tackled this on my own. Thanks for sharing photos! Of course, we never get cheap crabs around here. They're always a luxury menu item. Maybe I just need to come visit you, Virginia! :)

    I just pre-ordered the new book!!

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    1. Thanks so much, Missy! And we're always open to visitors. One glorious year we had visitors from Portland, Germany, Florida, Texas, and Mexico. The next, we had only one visit from Montana friends! LOL. Feast or famine, I suppose. This coming summer sounds like it will be another feast of friends so we're excited to host a rotating group of visitors. :)

      And same here, crabs are never cheap here... but for a few weeks. If we're out of town or not paying attention, we can miss it completely. :P

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  6. My grandparents who lived in San Francisco always took me to dinner on Fisherman's Wharf when I came to visit. And my favorite was cracked crab on ice and I would open that crab and eat away. The photos brought back lots of memories of fun times with grandparents. Also my Aunt and Uncle had a cabin on an island in Puget Sound. We used to catch crabs and cook them on the beach. So fun. Scenes of that in Love's Refuge. smile

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    1. I remember that scene! When I was little, my parents cooked all sorts of seafood and I DREADED our yearly beach trips because I was a picky eater. I just wanted mac and cheese out of a box!
      Now, I love crab but not much else. I'll go hunt mussels and clamming, and I'll cook them, but don't enjoy them unless battered or fried with bread crumbs. I let my kids decide whether they want to partake of the ocean-y goodness, so everybody is happy!

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  7. Oh yes, congrats on the new book out. So impressed you have done the covers yourself. I might mention that in my blog on Tuesday. Can I?

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    1. Sure! And thank you. I had a real block against trying to learn Photoshop because I'd tried it once before, spent about five hours, and was absolutely lost. So, I let it go for a year and just decided I couldn't learn how.
      Fast forward to my cover designer deciding that she was going to use a different photo site... and I couldn't really find any photos I liked on it. So, it was either find a new designer or try one more time. And for some STRANGE reason, this time I figured it out! Well, maybe not so strange. I would look up a youtube video on each part of the process and follow along while watching on my Kindle fire. So, the video would play, I would try to tackle whatever it was (blending photos, changing eye color, inserting the title). So, when I did get a cover that looked useable, I was very pleased with myself and had a mini celebration!
      Apparently, you CAN teach an old writer new tricks, haha!

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    2. Wow, I'm so impressed. I have a funny image of you on the computer with the kindle fire propped next to you. Oh my. Too funny, but hey it worked. I will use you as an example of one who makes their own. I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous,

      Oh wait that was the same reason I finally learned how to do my own website. LOL

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  8. Congrats on book 5!!!! That is just plain delightful news!!!!

    And brave soul, cleaning a crab. I am beyond impressed. I've done it, but can't say I relished the job. It does surpass field dressing a deer and chicken-cleaning day on the farm.

    And that is all I'm saying about that!

    What a wonderful accomplishment, Mary Jane!

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