[Sca-cooks] period crab recipes

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius replied to me with:
<<<
> There are
> some oriental restaurants here which serve a dish of whole shrimp,
> including heads and shell, that I believe you are supposed to eat
> without peeling. Rather messy otherwise since they have a coating of
> spices and such. I'm still trying to get used to the texture.

Generally what you do (correction: what Southern Chinese do, I can't
say what other Asians do) is lift the shrimp to the mouth with your
chopsticks, bite off a hunk, move it around your mouth a bit to get
the seasonings or sauce from the shell, chew lightly, which separates
larger pieces of shell from the meat, then you reach into your mouth
with your chopsticks mouth open as little as possible, ideally with
lips closed, grab the pieces of shell, and remove them and put them
on the side of your plate. If you do end up eating a bit of shell,
it's no biggie. >>>

Thank you! I will have to try this next time. This sounds much better  
than trying to eat all of the shell or pick out the meat, both of  
which I've tried. No, a little bit of shell probably isn't a problem,  
but eating the entire shell seemed to have a much higher shell to  
meat ratio than I really wanted. Do you do this with the head  
including the antennas and such or do you just bite off the rest of  
the shrimp, in one or more bites, and leave the head and put that  
back on your plate?

<<<
> I do remember getting whole crabs on a Florida vacation one time.
> These were the hard-shell kind and eating them seemed to be rather
> difficult. Reminded me very much of dissecting various critters in
> High School biology class. A lot of trying to figure out what was
> what and whether it was edible or not.

In general, anything not shell, eyes, stomach bag or gill fibers, are
edible. >>>

Okay, that sorta helps. I seem to remember a number of different  
colored pieces and textures. Yes, having someone more expert at this  
to help/tutor would be good.

<<< It's really not that difficult, as long as you can afford to
get seafood juice on your clothes and such. Some old Maryland Ladies'
Auxilliary Cookbooks recommend dressing in a bathing suit and
spreading newspaper on the table...>>>

This sounds similar to eating boiled crawfish and similar items.  
There is a cajun style restaurant here in town that apparently brings  
a bucket of steamed potatoes, crawfish, corn on the cob and similar  
items to your table and you're supposed to dump it out on the table  
and go to it.

<<<
> I can see why many folks prefer King Crab legs and
> claws. Difficult to get the meat out of, at times, but less
> dissecting and figuring out what is edible.

Eeeeeh, yes, but not as sweet, juicy, or as good. >>>

Oh? Okay, maybe I'll get a chance to try these crabs again sometime.  
I thought the King Crab available in one of the Asian buffets pretty  
good. It shows up about one night a week. But fresh crab fresh from  
the ocean or off the boat sounds like it would be even better. Since  
so little of the crab gets eaten, it does make them a bit expensive  
but maybe on the shoreline the initial cost is low. Crawfish has the  
same problem. I can remember going to the beach with my family and  
buying several pounds of shrimp right off the boats and boiling them  
up and cooking them on the camp stove or in the travel trailer and  
then spending the meal peeling them. And racing my brothers because  
the faster you could peel and eat them, the more you got.

<<< As for figuring out
what's edible, see above. It's not rocket science, but like most
things, you sort of have to want to be good at it to be good at it.
If you don't want to be good at it, you won't be, no matter how many
times some experienced Bay crab-picker sits you down and shows you. >>>

Yes, but unless you live on the coast you might not get the chance to  
have crab enough to figure all this out. And if you're only chance to  
get it on the coast is in a restaurant, then it could cost a bit  
before you become experienced.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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