Opinions on how to properly cook/boil/steam your freshly caught Hood Canal WA Dungeness crab can vary greatly among local yokels.
Many hardcore traditionalists insist on using some kind of crab boil spices like you would find offered by companies like Zatarains.
Some people insist on boiling/steaming the entire crab, relishing the prized ‘butter’ that collects on the outer edges of the inner body shell.
Personally, my preference is to clean the crabs while we’re still out on the water. A quick axe chop to the center of the underbody kills the crabs instantly. Each side is then easily peeled out of the body shell and cleaned. We put the cleaned sides into a 5 gallon bucket filled with saltwater from Hood Canal. The bodies are retained until we get back into port, in the event that local Fish & Wildlife officers are lingering around, checking to see that everyone is following the rules.
Depending on the extent of our good fortune that day, we boil our bounty using the large aluminum pot and propane burner, using the saltwater we brought back with us from the Hood Canal. Cooking up just the cleaned ‘sides’ allows you to cook more crab and eliminate loads of messy clean-up that result if you cook the crabs whole. We don’t add any spices into the water, preferring the natural flavor that boiling in the saltwater provides.
There is much debate over the actual time you should cook/boil your crab. We prefer to bring the water to a boil, drop in the crab half sides, bring them back to boil, drop the flame slightly, and cook for 10 minutes.
Once the crab is cooked, we dump them into a large bowl and cover with ice.
Some people use various untensils like crackers, mallets, or seafood forks, and dip their cooked crab into melted butter or cocktail sauce.
I just don’t have the time or the patience. I crack the crab legs with my teeth and simply pork out to my stomach’s content!
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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com and SOUNDBITEBLOG, or e-mail: kitsapagent@gmail.com
Here is it July 13th, and my boat (the ever-faithful 16 foot C-Dory Angler) hasn’t graced the waters of Puget Sound for the 2009 crabbing season!