CRABS

THERE ARE DOZENS OF SPECIES OF CRABS, including stone crabs from Florida, king crabs from Alaska, and Dungeness crabs from the West Coast. The most widely available crab is the blue crab, which is found along the East Coast. Live blue crabs may be boiled and served as is. There's not much meat on a crab, and getting to it is a messy proposition. A crab boil is easy to prepare, but it's not the most efficient way to enjoy crabmeat. We think that a crab boil makes the most sense as an appetizer or part of a larger seafood spread, not as a main course. Thankfully, the meat is picked from the shell by processors and sold as fresh crabmeat when you need crabmeat in quantity for use in salads and crab cakes.

One of our favorite ways to consume blue crabs is when they are soft-shell crabs. Soft-shell crabs are blue crabs that have been taken out of the water just after they have shed their shells in the spring or summer. At this brief stage of its life, the whole crab, with its new, soft, gray skin, is almost completely edible and especially delicious. They should be purchased alive and cleaned at home for optimum flavor. Once cleaned, the crab should be cooked immediately.

To our way of thinking, the whole point of cooking soft-shells is to make them crisp. The legs should crunch delicately, while the body should provide a contrast between its thin, crisp outer skin and the soft, rich interior that explodes juicily in the mouth. Deep-frying delivers these results, but this method is better suited to restaurants. Air pockets and water in the crab cause a lot of dangerous splattering. For optimum safety, soft-shell crabs should be fried in a very large quantity of oil in a very deep pot, which is not practical at home.

We wanted to develop an alternative method for home cooks. We tried roasting, but the crabs didn't get crisp enough. Pan-frying lightly floured crabs produces a satisfyingly crisp crust. Crabs still splatter hot fat when cooked this way, but far less than when deep-fried. To avoid the mess and danger of the splattering hot fat, we recommend sliding a splatter screen (a round wire net with a handle) over the pan. We tried various coatings, including cornmeal, bread crumbs, and even Cream of Wheat. These coatings all detracted from the flavor of the crab. Flour produces a nice crisp crust with minimal effect on flavor.

We tried soaking the crabs in milk for two hours before applying the flour coating, a trick advocated by several sources to "sweeten" the meat. Again, we found that this method detracted from the fresh-out-of-the-water flavor of the crabs.

We also tried various fats for pan-frying, including whole butter, clarified butter, vegetable and peanut oils, and a combination of whole butter and olive oil. We found that whole butter gives the crabs a nutty flavor and browns them well. It is our recommended all-purpose cooking fat. Peanut oil produces especially crisp crabs. It does not add the rich flavor of butter, but works well when Asian flavorings are used to sauce the crabs.

We found that you need a tablespoon of fat for each crab and that a large skillet will accommodate only four crabs. Since two soft-shells make a typical serving, you will need two pans when cooking for four people. Although any heavy-bottomed skillet will work, cast iron holds heat especially well and is recommended.

Once the soft-shells have been cooked, they should be sauced and served immediately. Because the crabs are pan-fried, they don't need much of a sauce. A drizzle of something acidic, such as a squirt of lemon juice, is sufficient.

When shopping for soft-shells, look for fresh rather than frozen crabs. Most stores will offer to clean the crabs for you. Refuse their offer if you can. When you clean a live crab, it begins to lose its juices. In our tests, we found that crab cooked immediately after cleaning is plumper and juicier than a crab cleaned several hours before cooking.

While soft-shells are certainly the easiest way to enjoy the flavor of crabs, there is something appealing about crab boil. In our tests, we found that less is more here. The crabs have so much flavor that they can be boiled in plain water. You can add seasonings such as Old Bay if you like, but they are far from essential.

For those who don't like a mess or to work for their dinner, fresh crabmeat is a good, if expensive, alternative. Other forms of crabmeat just don't compare. Canned crabmeat is—well—horrible; like canned tuna, it bears little resemblance to the fresh product. Fresh pasteurized crabmeat is watery and bland. Frozen crabmeat is stringy and wet. There is no substitute for fresh blue crabmeat, preferably "jumbo lump," which indicates the largest pieces and highest grade.

For crab cakes and salads, fresh unpasteurized jumbo lump crabmeat is the only choice. For best flavor, don't rinse the crabmeat. Just pick over the meat to make sure all the cartilage and shell pieces have been removed.