Crab question...

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by meathauler

I have run into this problem several times. I catch them, place crabs in ice chest with ice, pull plug and tilt chest. The next day no water and crabs are dormant. I boil/steam them like normal. Why sometime the meat is mushy and sometime its firm?

Its important to put them in boiling water and cook only 12 minutes. Mushy crabs are from over cooking 99% of the time. If your crabs will sit in an ice chest for more than 20 minutes before eating reduce the cooking time by 3 minutes. Remember when holding hot in an ice chest they are still cooking.

Mushy crabs.......another reason crabs could be mushy after cooking is because there was not enough ice kept in the ice chest.

I took some family members out crabbing a few years ago [2 boats] and we both caught limits. We came home and cooked about half of them. They were great.

When my SIL was getting ready to leave, I asked him if he wanted to put some more ice on the crabs he had. He said he would do that when he got home. I talked with my SIL a few days later and he said when he cooked his crabs the next day.....a bunch were mushy. I asked if he had put more ice and he said he put a little bit and thought that would be enough.