Velvet crabs

[risby]

Could anybody offer any advice on use of velvet crabs? I bought some, frozen, on impulse yesterday and have found only very sparse info (one recipe for souffle) on the web.

How much meat does one crab shell contain (i.e. grams per 100 gram crab)?

How have you prepared or eaten them yourself?

Any comments gratefully received.

[diego]

If this is what I call Soft Shell Crabs, or crabs recently molted from their shells, just dust with flour and saute briefly in butter. You eat the whole thing.

[risby]

Originally Posted by diego

If this is what I call Soft Shell Crabs, or crabs recently molted from their shells, just dust with flour and saute briefly in butter. You eat the whole thing.

After a google search or two I don't think they are. Velvet crabs are Portunus puper whereas it seems "soft shell crab" can refer to several species such as blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) or, in asia, the mangrove crab (which itself is a name that refers to several species which happen to live among mangroves).

I have insufficient posts to enable me to use a link so here is a quote from the wikipedia

The velvet crab (alternatively velvet swimming crab or devil crab) is the largest swimming crab found in British coastal waters, with a carapace width of up to 100 mm. The body is coated with short hairs, giving the animal a velvety texture, whence the common name. It is one of the major crab species for UK fisheries.

The velvet crab lives from southern Norway to Western Sahara in the North Sea and north Atlantic as well as western parts of the Mediterranean Sea, on rocky bottoms from the shoreline to a depth of about 65 m. The last pair of pereiopods are flattened to facilitate swimming.

[diego]

If they were frozen they must have been already steamed. I guess you would just thaw and eat. No idea of the meat to scrap ratio of the body. Dunginess crabs are high but blue crabs are low.

[risby]

Thanks for your help. I found that Mitchell Tonks' book "Fresh" has Baked Rice with Velvet Crabs and Saffron, p.78, if anyone is interested.

He says "Take the top shells off the crabs, remove the dead men's fingers, and put the top shell back on. That is all the preparation that is needed".

Which sounds good to me!