British · Appetizers

Dressed Crab

A crab picked and returned to its own shell, brown meat one side, white the other. An hour of fiddly work and the best thing on any British seaside menu.

1 hr total Serves 4 servings Medium
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Dressed Crab

Photograph credit: Delicious dressed crab by jennicatpink · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence

Before You Start

Brown and white kept separate. Mixing buries the white meat.

Gills and stomach sac go in the bin, every time.

Check the white meat twice for shell. There is always one more piece.

Making Dressed Crab

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  1. If the crabs are raw, boil them in the heavily salted water 15 minutes per kilo, then cool completely.

  2. Twist off the legs and claws. Pull the body up and out of the main shell.

  3. Pull away and throw out the grey feathery gills and the stomach sac behind the eyes.

  4. Scoop all the brown meat from the shell into one bowl.

  5. Crack the claws and legs and pick every scrap of white meat into a second bowl, checking carefully for shell.

  6. Split the body and pick the white meat from its channels into the same bowl.

  7. Scrub the empty shells and snap away the thin edge along the natural line.

  8. Mash the brown meat with the breadcrumbs, mustard, mayonnaise, lemon juice, cayenne and salt.

  9. Spoon the brown meat down each side of the shell and pile the white meat in loose in the middle.

  10. Mark the divisions with lines of sieved egg white, egg yolk and parsley, and serve with lemon.

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Why the Method Works

Keep the two meats completely separate and dress only the brown. Brown meat is soft, rich and strongly flavoured and wants breadcrumbs, mustard and lemon to give it body; white meat is delicate and needs nothing but a squeeze of lemon, and mixing them buries it. Discard the dead man's fingers — the grey feathery gills — without hesitation, and the stomach sac behind the eyes. Neither is dangerous, but both taste unpleasant and ruin the whole crab.

Storage and Reheating

Refrigerated for 1 day only. Never freeze picked crab.

Good With

  • Brown bread and butter
  • Mayonnaise
  • A cold white

What's in a Serving

Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.

562Calories
96gProtein
13gCarbs
14gFat
1gFibre
2gSugar
8940mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .