We're having a dinner party in a few weeks, and John challenged me to make She-Crab Soup, which I have never made before, as an appetizer for the party. I have never de-crabbed a crab before either, so I figured I'd go all out and make the soup from scratch.
Whole, frozen blue crabs were on sale for $1.99 a pound, so I bought 12. These little ladies were saran-wrapped into meat trays in the freezer section, packed the same day I bought them, so I just took them home, wrapped them in several layers of plastic bags to keep the seafood smell and stabby spikes contained, and stuck them in the meat drawer to prepare the next day.
The next day, I got home from work after stopping at the store to pick up some fresh fennel for the stock, and I put the wrapped-up crabs in the sink. While I was unloading my groceries, I started hearing faint popping and snapping noises, so I decided to investigate.
The noises were coming from the sink.
I was home alone and had never dealt with whole crustacea larger than gulf shrimp before, so I was getting a little freaked out but decided to open up the crab package and see what was making the noise. I figured it was just air or water escaping from the crabs' shells, since I had jostled them a little. I unwrapped the packages and stared at the unmoving crabs for a few seconds. As I turned away, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a leg move.
The crabs were coming back to life! I thought being frozen would have done them in, but apparently, it just stunned them. So I had some half-thawed crabs in my sink and I was nowhere near ready to start cooking them. I decided to get all the ice out of the freezer, fill the sink up with ice water and salt, and hope that the crabs would re-freeze so I could put them in the boiling water without them ever realizing they were getting cooked. That didn't work too well and only made them come back to life faster.
After cooking and de-crabbing the crabs, I had a nice stockpot full of crab shells, onion, garlic, fennel, ginger root, herbs and seasonings, a ramekin full of crab roe, and about a pound of crab meat for the soup.
Since it took four hours to do all this, I ended up making the soup the next night. It was a big success with John and is his new favorite soup (something finally beat out loaded baked potato soup!), but we both agreed I should just buy the crab meat for the party. It was worth the experience, but I definitely won't do it again!
