Soft Shells serve as a delicious delicacy!
Crabbers have a keen eye for crabs ready to bust out of their shells, called molting. Young, immature crabs molt frequently to reach adult sized measurements. So, the small crabs get special grading to catch them in ”the act.” A crab without the hard shell takes the difficulty out of the feast. The only preparation is a “cleaning and dressing” where the inedible mouth parts, gills, and abdomen are snipped away. Most chefs prefer a flash frozen soft shell for the cooking calendar ease.
The attention to timing and how to bring the soft shell to the table requires skillful routines. The crabber quickly places a crab ready to molt in a tank on board the boat and transfers them into a larger tank, back at the dock. Biologically filtered tanks keep the “busters” healthy as they enter into the molting stage. At that instant, the crabber must “harvest” the crab since he only has about a 3 hour window until the crab begins to grow a new shell, which takes away from the delicacy of eating jumbo, lump, and claw meat without a shell. This surprise catch fills the pots throughout the warmer months from mid-April until mid-October. Once the weather turns cold, the chance of potting a soft shell becomes less. The detailed routine in harvesting a soft shell and the incredible reality of eating the entire crab, minus a few parts, makes this dish a true delicacy. Try sautéing, grilling, or even deep frying to add your personal “chef touch” to a bay “must have!”
What makes Jumbo Meat a Prized Find?
First, finding jumbo chunks in the blue crab is easy. Locate the back two swimming paddle leg area and you’ll note two large pristine crab chunks. You laid your hungry fingers on it with no major picking since the meat is denser, plump, and intact, compared to the flaky lump, body meat. These two muscles maneuver the crabs for its sidewise swimming and develop into an impressive chunk from continues use and nourishment. Eelgrass, snails, oysters, small fish, plankton, etc. help build this muscle into quite a spectacle, perfect for cocktails and exquisite sautés. Each crab stage and molting year grows this crustacean into a prized jumbo candidate. For example, a bay crab, 5”-5.5” won’t have as much jumbo as an extra-large, 6.5”-7”. Once you realize it, you can easily pull jumbo chunks from the crab and taste the distinct sweet flavor with a buttery hint. With such a large portion, jumbo meat is prized for a bold culinary statement, “Blue Crabs have entered the building!”
