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Bento Recipes: Snow crab

 
   
 

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Snow crab is one of those things I tried years ago on a whim. Sale on snow crab? What's that? Huh, how do you cook and eat it? Thanks to a helpful associate at the seafood counter I took a cluster (half a crab) home, cooked and ate it, and was hooked.

These are simplicity itself to cook. Assuming you're buying frozen, cooked crab, just let it defrost in warm water, then take it out, boil a pot of water, chunk the crab in, let it boil for a few minutes, drain the water, hold it up by the claws (body side down) to let the water drain, and it's ready to eat. Some like to add salt or vinegar to the water, but I take mine straight up.  Serve it with melted butter. You can use plain butter, but I like to add a few drops of lemon and a sprinkling of salt. Serve this butter in a small dipping dish or a tiny teacup.

One bit of warning: eating snow crab is messy business. If you thought fried chicken was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet! You crack the legs at the joints to pull out the meat, break the legs to get stuff that didn't pull out before, use forks or the business ends of the claws to dig out bits that stuck to the insides of the shell. Keep a bowl on hand for the "discards." You're going to work for your food, using your bare hands a lot of the time (have plenty of napkins on hand!), but it's delicious enough to be worth it!