Snow crab in the sea
Recipe by Roy B. The most easy way to prepare this sweet delicious treat from the sea. Steaming locks in that sweet succulant flavor that we so love. The Alaska snow crab fishery is currently managed according to the “three S’s” – size, sex, and season. Only male crabs of a certain size may be harvested, and fishing is not allowed during mating and molting periods. These measures help ensure that crabs are able to reproduce and replace the ones that are harvested.
The snow crab is named after the climate where it lives: the coldest parts of the North Atlantic Sea and the Northern Pacific Ocean, where the water temperature is always below 4°C. The crab has a small body with long, thin legs and has an orange, light-brown or red-coloured shell. The snow crab lives for around six years and typically resides inshore, in fjords where the seabed is muddy or sandy. The fjords have plenty of food for the snow crab, mainly other shellfish, mussels and molluscs. The snow crab is seen at depths from 20 to 1,200 metres, but is usually found at between 70 and 280 metres.
Alaskan Snow Crab Clusters - Chionoecetes bairdi One of the factors why Alaskan snow crab legs are so valuable is that their meat is considered to be the most delicate meat of all. We sell the most valuable type of snow crab, the bairdi snow crab. They are the sweetest tasting of all snow crab types. Today you can buy snow crab legs on sale. (Note: Our wild-caught Snow Crab comes pre-cooked and pre-scored for your ease and convenience.) When you’re looking to make the most of the pure, clean flavors of wild Alaskan snow crab meat, suitable for a diverse array of meals, you’re going to want to steam the crab legs until they’re piping hot, with little to no manipulation.
The male crab is usually twice the size of the female, measuring around 15 centimetres across the shield, while the female typically measures eight to nine centimetres. Females and males live separately, except during the spawning season, when the eggs are fertilised. After spawning, the female carries the eggs for up to a year before they hatch.
The stocks in Western Greenland and Canada are considered to be healthy and are harvested at a sustainable level.
(Note: Our wild-caught Snow Crab comes pre-cooked and pre-scored for your ease and convenience.)
When you’re looking to make the most of the pure, clean flavors of wild Alaskan snow crab meat, suitable for a diverse array of meals, you’re going to want to steam the crab legs until they’re piping hot, with little to no manipulation. In our opinion, the steaming method is ideal for heating any variety of ready-to-eat crab legs for multi-purpose use, since steam offers quick, intense heat that preserves the moist, tender texture of fresh, high-quality crab meat.
While boiling wild Alaskan snow crab legs can also produce juicy results, steaming them allows the crab meat to retain more of its own juices and flavors, and the minimal addition of liquid makes the legs easier to handle when you’re chowing down. That’s because boiling tends to introduce more liquid into the leg cavities, which can leave you with more of a hot mess as you snap the legs open at their seams — not that there’s anything wrong with that, especially if you have something on hand to soak up some of the extra juices.
To Thaw or Not to Thaw?
Snow Crab Added By Users Guide
When steaming most wild Alaskan varieties of seafood, thawing out your proteins before introducing them to heat is the best way to ensure even doneness and ideal textures in the final product. However, crab legs are much less dense and won’t suffer much from being heated up straight from the freezer. So, should you thaw them, or heat them from frozen?
The main benefit of taking the time to thaw snow crab legs is that you will reduce the already fast cook time. Bringing the crab meat to the desired temperature after that requires less than 5 minutes. Thawed snow crab legs are also more pliable, so you’ll be able to arrange them into small pots with no issues.
The main benefit to heating snow crab legs from frozen is that you can prepare a meal of snow crab legs on the fly, with little advance notice. We suggest rinsing off the ice glaze under cold, running water so that there aren’t any super icy sections for more even cooking. When using frozen crab, bringing the crab meat to the desired temperature usually requires at least 5 minutes, depending on the amount you’re trying to steam up; it’ll never take more than 10 minutes for your pot of crab legs to get hot enough to produce steam.
How to Steam Frozen or Thawed Snow Crab Legs
Set a steamer basket into a pot large enough to accommodate your snow crab legs, filling the bottom of the pot with an inch or so of liquid. You can use plain water as a steaming medium. If you want to add in a hint of aromatic notes, use a mixture of water and white wine, or add in several slices of fresh lemon. Even during a brief steam, these ingredients will add a subtle complexity to the crab meat.
Bring everything to a boil, then add the crab legs to your steamer basket. Close the pot with a tight-fitting lid or aluminum foil, then allow the legs to steam for 4 minutes if thawed and about 6 minutes if frozen. You’ll know that they’re done when the legs themselves are hot enough to give off their own steam when lifted from the pot.
Snow Crab Added By Users List
As an alternative, you can use the steaming feature of an Instant Pot to bring your crab legs to temperature, following the manufacturer’s guidance on how much liquid to add to the appliance — typically, one cup of water for a 6-quart pot and two cups for an 8-quart pot. Your crab legs, whether thawed or frozen, will be steamy in 4 minutes.
If you don’t have a steamer basket or pressure cooker, you can simply cover the bottom of a wide pot with water — less than ¼ inch in depth — and steam your legs directly in this layer of liquid. It should be shallow enough that your crab legs are steamed rather than boiled, but contain enough water so that the liquid doesn’t burn off before your legs are finished warming through. This improvised method works better with thawed legs, since there’s less of a chance that the liquid will burn off before the crab meat is heated to the desired temperature.