Cooking Blue Crab

Once the weather got warmer, I remember my mom picking us up from school, an odd rustling sound coming from the back seat. We would help her carry the groceries, but she would claim the crab bag, pockmarked with holes from the live, writhing crabs. She'd dump them in the sink while setting water to boil. Sometimes, a crab would get bold and jump, skittering across the kitchen floor. Remembering this, I ask her why she brought them home alive?

"You never cook a dead crab," she says. "If you do, the meat's no good; it's mushy."

Crab meat should be fork-tender, yet firm. A little sweet, but not tasteless. The only way to get this result is to drop the blue crab in the boiling water while they're still alive.

Also, she says, while Westerners (Americans, in particular) prefer the leaner meat of the male crab, most Asians prefer the fatty flavor found in female crabs. The way to tell the difference? Take a look for yourself:

The flavor is even better if the female has eggs, a creamy orange-ish substance lying just beneath the shell. It's rich and fatty and flavorful, and what my parents wanted most when they bought blue crabs. But you won't know if she has any until you crack her open, which brings me to . . .

How to Open Blue Crab

1. Flip the crab so it's lying on its back.

2. With a spoon or your fingers, pop open the apron (the belly section of the crab, which is wide and wedge-shaped on a female, and narrower and pointier on a male).

3. If it's a female, you'll see the egg. Scoop that out with a spoon if you want, and set it to the side.

4. Flip the crab over and pull off the entire top shell.

5. Crack the bottom shell in half.

6. Find that luscious meat inside.

How to Eat Blue Crab

At my house, we ate it simply with white rice. You could dip the crab meat into a mix of white or cane vinegar and garlic, which gives the sweet meat the tang of acid. You might even add a little soy sauce. But if the crab meat is good, it's fine on its own.

The trick is that inside the shell is a softer shell, with crab meat nestled in the nooks. This inner shell is not edible, so the best way to pull the meat out is to use your fingers (rather than a spoon or fork) to coax out the meat and put aside the inner shell. Messy, yes, but so satisfying.

Photos by Michelle Klosinski, Groupon.