Dealing with Live Crabs

so you took my advice and went to the Asian store to buy some live crabs. around here that probably means dungeness. first thing you need to remember is . . . they’re alive. i will never forget the first time i drove home with a bag of live dungeness crabs in the trunk. i kept hearing this scritching sound and finally realized it was the crabs scrabbling around in the bag. kinda creepy. but i wanted to eat fresh crab.

once you get the critters home, you have to figure out how to cook them. don’t know if you are like me, but i am a little squeamish about wriggling crab legs - they make me think of giant spiders. so here’s my secret. put the stopper in the sink and fill it with warm water - not hot hot but warmer than lukewarm. now dump the crabs from the bag directly into the sink. the warm water will put them to sleep and they won’t struggle when you get ready to put them into the pot. i still use metal tongs to pick them up, but they don’t wiggle.

my daughter says i should tell the story about when we were cooking gumbo at her godmother’s house in the Bronx and one of the blue crabs got out of the bag and crawled behind the fridge. we had to move the whole thing to get it back. another reason to anesthetize them in a sink of warm water.  

when it’s time to cook them, i just put the crabs into a big pot with about an inch of  water in the bottom and turn on the heat to medium. once the steam starts escaping i cook them for 15 minutes. little less for small crabs; maybe a little longer for really huge ones. then take them off the heat, take off the lid, and let them cool.

when i was a kid we cracked and cleaned crab using a cutting board, a hammer, and our teeth. frankly, the teeth are still the best tools in my opinion, except for the really hard claws. but for company i got a bunch of crab crackers and little crab picks. did i get them from some fancy kitchen store? of course not. i got inexpensive ones from an Asian supermarket.

 

maybe you just want to eat some crab so you can crack and eat as you go. or maybe you want to make something with the crabmeat so you crack it all at once.

but whatever you do, please save all of the juice that comes out of the crabs. if there is some creamy fat in the back shell, save all of that. but even if the crabs don’t have any fat, the greenish yellowish water that collects at the bottom of the cooking pot and the leftover shells is full of wonderful crabby flavor. and sometimes there are some white squiggly bits - i have a feeling they’re crab sperm but i save them too. 

so do whatever you want with the crabmeat and stay tuned and i’ll share some ideas for what to do with the crab fat and crab juice.

Buying Seafood in Seattle (the not-for-tv version)

let’s talk about seafood.  after all, the Pacific Northwest is famous for it and Seattle is full of famous fish markets. who hasn’t seen the salmon flying at Pike Place Market - at least on TV if not in person?  boozhie supermarkets in the suburbs have fish counters that can compete with specialty seafood stores.   trendy restaurants and the foodie crowds all have their preferred sources.

when i was a kid in the Central Area, we bought our fish at Mutual Fish on 14th Avenue. When they moved to Rainier, i followed them, because back then there weren’t that many places to buy really good seafood.

but nowadays, i buy my fresh seafood at Asian markets. and i’m not talking Uwajimaya. I’m talking SOUTH END. you know. i remember telling one of my daughters that i was going to buy live dungeness crabs at Viet Wah (a local Vietnamese-owned chain of supermarkets) and she asked if i was confident they were fresh. i make no recommendations about the stuff on ice -- you have to be careful and know how to judge if something is fresh enough. but when it comes to the live selections, my answer is: “they’re alive. you really can’t get any fresher than that.”

besides live crab, Viet Wah always has live shrimp, manila clams, oysters, lobsters and tilapia. depending on the season, you might also find live mussels, cockles, snails frogs, turtles, geoducks and blue crabs. and one time there was this enormous grouper-like creature that filled a whole tank -- must’ve been a special order.

then there is Ranch 99 market in the Great Wall shopping mall in Kent -- it’s part of a West Coast chain. they have an even bigger live selection, with dozens of different kinds of fish swimming in separate tanks.

and, justifying its name, Seafood City (which attracts a lot of Filipinos) in Southcenter has a huge seafood section -- both fresh and frozen. And don’t forget H-Mart in Federal Way. Their primary focus is Korean food but they have a pan-Asian clientele

Not only do the large Asian markets offer a selection of live seafood, but they can prepare it for you in many different ways -- from simple cleaning to fileting to deep frying on the spot. the prices are usually posted for each level of service. sometimes the signs aren’t in English, but don’t let that stop you. Most store employees speak at least enough English to communicate with customers and there are always gestures. and, if you are having language problems, you can always find another customer who will be willing to help. just ask . . .