Cleaning and Steaming Crabs

Some people boil crabs live and then clean them as they eat them.  Yuck!  Cleaning is much simpler when the crabs are alive and the cooked crabs are much more appetizing and taste just as good.  Do this outside, preferably right by the water. 

With heavy leather gloves remove claws and put in steamer.  With a knife, remove the apron from the bottom of the crab.  A crab with a rounded apron is a female.  A crab with a triangular apron is a female which has not yet borne eggs.  A crab with a long pointed apron is a male crab (just in case you are interested). 

Hold the crab between your two hands.  Place one thumb around one point of the shell and the other thumb around all the legs on the same side as the point.  Pull apart to pry the top shell off the crab.  Cut off the eyes and mouth parts.  The crab should stop screaming about now (just kidding).  Remove the spongy grayish fingers (the lungs) on each side of the body cavity. 

With a hose sprayer, wash the innards of the crab out of the cavity with a high pressure stream of water.  Throw the cleaned crabs in the pot with the claws.  Add several cups of water to steamer.  Sprinkle crabs with Old Bay crab seasoning.  Cover and steam until crabs are pink, about 5 or 10 minutes.   Remove cover and eat or pick meat from crabs as soon as they are cool enough to handle.