In preparing for New Years Dinner we’ve got the tutorial showing you how easy it is to cook crab at home. The most consistent question I get asked is how do you cook crab? Most people think of boiling crab or cooking crab in the oven. My advice is to always go with a steam and here is why:
Crab coming off the west coast is already cooked. When you receive crab you are receiving a frozen cooked cluster or leg of crab. This means you just need to heat it up. Steaming crab is my go to because you can cook it from frozen! All this means is you need to get about 1/2 inch of water boiling and then put your crab clusters in. For 304 clusters of Dungeness you are looking at 7-9 minutes of steaming.
Once the should of the crab is hot to the touch you know this crab is done and ready to begin cracking and eating!
If cooking crab in the oven or the grill I recommend thawing it first. Crab clusters and legs of a glaze layer over them to help protect the crab meat while in the freezer. The glaze is essentially a layer of ice. Thaw the crab out first to avoid a huge mess and puddle in the oven!
