Crabs - Freeze or not ?

[squidlips 0]

Well what was going to turn out to be a nice quiet family christmas has turned out to be an invasion from the rellies !!!! We are having a good old aussie seafood christmas. I have stockpiled some fresh squid, snapper hopefully next few days, local prawns in the freezer, all that is left is the Blue swimmer crabs. Normally I catch just enough for ourselves and any left over meat I pickle in jars. I am buggered if I am going to pickle enough crabs for the maurading rellies, they can get smelly fingers and crack their own on chrissy day !!I need to catch a decent feed in the next week or so and want to know the best way of freezing them as I have never had to bother before. Do I cook them first and freeze them whole in the shells, or do I just freeze them straight from the water and then cook them once they have thawed out again from the freezer ?

[4THALOVE 45]

hey squid lips i got a mate who is a cray fisherman who taught me how to cook them.keep them in salt water till ya get back to ramp in the shade, empty water when you get back then fill the bucket up with "fresh water" at the boat wash down, this should drown them by the time you get home. next boil some salted water, make sure the crabs are dead (we have a knitting needle we shove into the brain just to be sure ) this stops the claws etc falling off, then put them into the salted boiling water upside down, whilst cooking prepare an ice slurry salt water slurry is best once cooked keep upside down then place into the slurry still upside down,let them cool down then taking one at a time out back them straight away (back them meaning peel top shell off) keeping them upside down getz rid of all the crap and it sits inside the shell then pull the lungs out and rinse excess off in the slurry again i guarantee you once you try this and eat one you will never change the way its done they come out so clean and white i never really ate crab until being shown this way now i love em i know people steam them and so on but this is the way i like them to store/freeze we then halve them up the middle put em into bags and pull em out as needed cheers 4THA

[squidlips 0]

Thanks, but already knew how to cook them. Just didn't know whether to cook before freezing or freeze green.Here's a better way to cook. Remove the underbody shell whilst still green, clean, then put in rapidly boiling 'SEAWATER' (not fresh salted water), throw in about 1TBS sugar for every litre of water. Once in the boiling water (don't overcrowd as you want them to come back to boil pretty quickly, so use a real good high gas flame), put the lid on and once the water comes back to the boil again, count 2 minutes then remove them and immediately plunge into iced seawater.Delicious. As a Chef this is how I cooked them in 5 star restaurants. No point cooking them in their own crap, clean first is always better.Cheers Gary (you would think being a chef I would know how to freeze them, but as I said before I have never had the need till now)

[iphishy 0]

Freeze them green. Do not shell them either. Only clean when thawed and they will be fine to cook after. I have stockpiled mine to make up chilli crabs and they work a treat this way. They are like prawns. You can freeze prawns green and they turn out alright, same goes with the blueys.

[Skudded 0]

Cheers Gary (you would think being a chef I would know how to freeze them, but as I said before I have never had the need till now)

If you came one here saying your a 5 star chef and feeze them this way then I would have been disgusted lol..A true chef always cooks food fresh...except when the rellies drop in lol

[squidlips 0]

Cheers Gary (you would think being a chef I would know how to freeze them' date=' but as I said before I have never had the need till now) [/quote']If you came one here saying your a 5 star chef and feeze them this way then I would have been disgusted lol..A true chef always cooks food fresh...except when the rellies drop in lol

Too true. No need for a big freezer in a quality restaurant, just lots of helpers to prep. The further down the star rating you get, the bigger the freezer and dry pantry, and crappier the meals. (prison food that you fork out cash for)