Recipe: Fresh-Caught Crabs

Let me preface this by stating the obvious: I do not typically (read: ever) catch my food and cook it 10 minutes later in my apartment, and taking pictures while handling live crabs perhaps requires more grace and dexterity than I was blessed with.

But given that I took a few days off work to relax at our beach house in Ortley, NJ, crabbing at 9AM and then eating the haul for lunch doesn’t seem all that out of place. In fact, it makes me wonder why we don’t do it more often. 

This recipe was a result of “Mom, we have 15 crabs in the cooler – What’s next!” Three minutes later, she had an aromatic hot tub of beer and Old Bay ready, and in the little (but sort of ferocious) guys went.  

Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re about to hop back on the boat to go across the bay for dinner. Debating intentionally frying myself the next 2 days so it’s a bit easier to leave the sun for the city on Thursday… 

Ingredients

Fresh, live crabs (allot 2-3 crabs/person)

1 bottle gluten free beer (Redbridge is my go-to for drinking so we used that, but any will do) 

Old Bay

Lemons 

Recipe

Fill the largest pot you have with about two inches of water. Add the bottle of beer and a generous helping of Old Bay, and bring to a boil. 

Once water is boiling, carefully add crabs. (Tongs are not really optional here, unless you’re not too concerned with having fingers.) Cover pot and let crabs steam for about 10 minutes. 

After removing cooked crabs, serve with lemon wedges, extra Old Bay, and plenty of paper towels.