Crab Lasagna - Delish!

Step One: Find some wily rock crabs on the beach.  Take a big bucket and a rake. Wear your beach shoes, prepare to get muddy and wet.  (that's half the fun!)  The crabs hide down in the mud underneath the big rocks and seaweed. It takes a little skill  with the rake (or the rake handle) to find them. My dad is an expert crab "hunter"!  Alex and Tom didn't do too bad, I even found 2 all on my own....

Step Two: Cook them in the pot.  Water should be boiling, and crabs need to cook for 15 minutes.  Best tasting (we think) if you cook them in salt water.  Ours were still hanging on to the seaweed from the beach!

Step Three: Cool the crabs in clean fresh water, then lay them out to drip dry.  I love the barnacle hat that this one is wearing!

Step Four: Crack and clean the crabs. A lot of messy work, but so worth it for fresh crab.  We have to watch my mom, she puts more in her mouth than in the bowl.  Because these rock crabs came off of my parents beach, the price was exactly right too! FREE

Step Five: Make the Lasagna!

Ingredients:
Lasagna Noodles - cook and drain
Fresh Crab Meat (bay shrimp would be good too!)
Mix together:
1 can cream of shrimp or mushroom soup
1 package of cream cheese
1 pt. small or curd cottage cheese (or ricotta)
1 egg
3/4 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper (or lemon pepper)

3-4 sliced tomatoes
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Simply layer noodles, cheese mixture, crab in a 9" x 13" pan. Repeat layering until the pan is full. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then take out and layer tomotoes on top, with cheddar cheese on top of the tomatoes.  Bake for another 10 minutes until cheese is bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

Serve with some crunchy french bread and a ceasar salad and voila' - Gourmet Dinner!

Cooking Rock Crab

My dad is a crab cooking expert, claiming that the best way to cook crab is in clean sea water. I will agree with that - just make sure to clean out the stray floating piece of sea kelp! (Salted water can be substituted, just not quite the same flavor)

Needed:

1. very large deep pot for boiling

2. clean seawater

3. long tongs to drop in the crabs

4. a little bravery!

Fill pot with the sea water and place on the stove to boil. Be aware, due to the amount of water in the pot and the salt, it may take a while for the water to come to a boil.

There are two theories about preparing the crab for cooking; the crab can be cracked in half and cleaned before placing in the pot, or the entire crab can be placed into the pot and then cleaned after it's cooked. Either way will work, it's all in your preference for mess. I prefer cooking the whole crab first.

Carefully place the crabs in the pot using your tongs. I like really really long ones to avoid getting pinched - my dad is much braver than me! After filling the pot with the crabs, place the lid on and turn the heat down, but still boiling. Timer should be set for 20 minutes. When the crabs are done, run continuous cool water on them until they cool down.

Cleaning can be a very messy affair! We usually spread old newspaper on the outside

picnic table, it seems to be the easiest way to make clean-up a breeze. Alex and I have determined that effective crab cracking is all in the tools; GOOD crab crackers, and maybe a small hammer as Rock Crab are just a little harder than a dungeness to break open.

Cleaning:

1. Remove the back first, holding the base of the crab and pulling the shell away from the body

2. Remove the triangular-shaped section on the flip-side of the crab and lift away. Should be then easy to gently remove the gills on either side, and wash away the "crab butter" (kind of gross yellow stuff..). Some crab connoisseurs consider this a delicacy, not me.

3. Break off the legs and the front claws

4. Gently wash the remaining body under cool fresh water

5. Dig in! Use your fingers, crab picks, crab-crackers or whatever you find to break out the crab meat - YUM! Wonderful to dip in melted butter with garlic and lemon, or simply eat right out of the shell.

Here's one of our favorite E-Z appetizers to make! So easy, can be whipped together in about 5 minutes - one of my favorites after fun crabbing afternoons in the San Juan Islands.

Ingredients:

8 oz. softened cream cheese

cocktail sauce

cooked, cracked crab

Spread softened cream cheese on a decorative plate, then layer with cocktail sauce and crab. Serve with your favorite crackers. Guaranteed to be the hit of your next party!

Here's the kid, Alex, relaxing after a hard morning hunting crab and cleaning....

The Art of Rock Crabbing

Tools Required:

1. Super low tide (-3.1 or better)

2. Beach Shoes or Rubber Boots

3. Sturdy Rake

4. Big, Deep Bucket

5. Gloves (maybe)

6. ATTITUDE!

Rules:

1. Crabs must be 5 1/2

inches across the top of their shell to be legal

2. Must have shellfish license and can only take 6 per person (must also be Crab Season)

3. Leave the girl crabs on the beach (flip them over before putting them in the bucket to make sure)

4. Don't get your fingers anywhere near their strong front claws - OUCH!

Here's Alex, headed out on the hunt for the mighty Rock Crab! Note the determined stride, to find the wily creatures hiding under big leaf seaweed and in hidden holes under big rocks. Rock Crabs are distinctly different than Dungeness, shells are much tougher, brighter red in color and taste (I think) much sweeter than a Dungeness. They are definitely worth the effort!

I am a great bucket holder and picture taker, and perfectly happy to let Dad and Alex rake for the crabs under the bigger rocks, and wade out into the water to find them scuttling along underneath the layers of kelp. They are both wearing boots... my beat-up Keds won't withstand a rock crab pinch!

One of the best side benefits of rock crabbing is getting the chance to see all kinds of other sea life that we normally don't see because it is all covered up by cold, deep Puget Sound water. I found some of the most gorgeous, colorful sea stars that I have ever seen, and again am always amazed at nature's color palette.

Look closely at the photo on the right, for the girl crab hiding underneath the rock near the light purple sea star on the left.

Anemones galore on my mom and dad's beach!

Brilliant oranges and reds - have to be so careful though when shooting the pictures to not touch them, or they quickly shrink out of sight.

Alex and Dad easily found 11 crabs and I actually found 3 all by myself! Lots of girl crabs and crabs missing front claws that we decide to leave on the beach for next year. As you can probably tell from the photo, it is a little tricky to capture one and make sure that it doesn't pinch you. Here's Alex with one large rock crab on his rake before he deposits him in the bucket. We can put quite a few crabs in each bucket, and they usually fight for a while before settling down. So Critical to have a deep bucket to prevent escaping!

Next blog post: Now that you've caught 14 crabs, what do you do with them?