Maryland · Main
Steamed Blue Crabs with Old Bay
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 4 of 4 for cost
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 24 live blue crabs
- 500ml water
- 500ml cider vinegar or beer
- 150g Old Bay seasoning
- 150g coarse salt
- Melted butter and lemon to serve
- Newspaper for the table
Equipment
Steamer
The skills inside
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · shellfish · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Bring the water and vinegar to a boil in the base of a large steamer with a rack set above the liquid.
- Layer the crabs in the pot, dusting each layer heavily with Old Bay and salt, heavier than feels reasonable.
- Cover tightly and steam 20-25 min until the shells turn bright orange-red all over. 25 min
- Tip onto a table spread with newspaper and let them cool just enough to handle.
- Serve with melted butter, lemon, and mallets; the picking is the meal.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Barrel-aged Chardonnay (Meursault style)
- Also Right
- Champagne
- From the Taps
- Pilsner or witbier
- Zero-Proof
- White grape & tonic
Butter-dressed shellfish climbs a weight class: oak-and-cream Chardonnay matches it richness for richness.
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