On Jun 2, 9:28 am, notbob > wrote:
> On 2011-06-02, Doug Freyburger > wrote:
>
> > My wife was born in Seattle and grew up in Portland so she had fresh
> > dungeness all the time growing up. She always orders it cleaned first
> > so that's the way to have that type of crab.
>
> Excuse me!? I've been eating D-crabs fer 60 yrs and have never ever
> heard of cooking cleaned fresh D-crab. Ya don't even wash the ocean
> water off! Ya cook 'em whole, then clean 'em.
>
Not so. I've been posting about this since 1998. Here's what I wrote
in 2001:

"the world divides between those who clean them first and those who
clean them after. My half says, don't you take the guts out of other
animals before you cook them? Why would crab be different? So,
here's the
procedure.

"[In the interest of completeness, even though I completely disagree,
there
_are_ folks who think if you cook the beast whole then you may choose
to
eat some of those disgusting innards and call them "butter" the way
some
people do with lobster.]

"Put a large pot of water on to boil. When it's already boiling,
prepare the
crabs. Grab the legs on the left side of the crab with your left
hand, so
they don't grab you, and pull off the top shell. Grab the legs on the
right
side with your right hand. Break the crab in half. Now pull out the
gills
and the loose innards, rinse each half and throw in the pot. Cook at
least
nine minutes at the full boil, up to eleven if they're huge. Remove,
drain,
eat. This whole procedure is best done on the boat at lunchtime after
you've pulled up your crab pots that morning.

"Drawn/clarified butter, and lemon wedges are all that's needed. "

I was first shown how to do that in 1954 and it's still true in
2011. -aem