We had crabs last night! From Gibby’s Seafood and they were DELICIOUS! Every time I eat them I end up sitting next to dear sweet Daddy and he guides me on how to dissect them correctly. I figured I would “document” this process for my own future benefit and for all ya’ll who aren’t Bal`more natives!
Step: 1 - Meet your prey…
Step 2 through 10..see below
Step 2: Flip him over and remove that nice little skinny piece of shell from the back.
Step 3: Remove the shell from the body (shove a knife or some daring fingers in the space and pry it open!)
Step 4: Remove the gills and other weird looking things from the body.
Step 5: Remove the big front claws and proceed to removing all the rest of the legs, but leave the backfin in!
Step 6: Now you have the body with the little backfins left on, spit apart the body (crack each side away from the other half!)
Step 7: Now the back part of the body has a wee bit of shell on top of where the backfin fits in. Pick away at the shell until you can see the backfin meat and then gently, very gently, remove the backfin leg and all of the glorious backfin meat attached to it!! GOLD!! I like to rub that in the old bay that covers the shells and then enjoy!
Step 8: Cut each remaining half piece of body in half and fish all of the meat from the channels!
Step 9: Now on to the claws!! Follow the pictures below (sharp funny daddy knife is not necessary but does make the process a bit easier)
Note the Cal shirt that my wonderful cousin scotty is wearing below! I forgot to take a “real” we are happily eating crabs picture of us together!
Step 10.5- DONE! now eat more…until your fingers are blooody and the smell of old bay laden crabs is now too much to endure.
That was one good looking crab. Nice job dissecting.