delicious crab crostini

I did it. I prepared and boiled my first whole live crabs yesterday. It was an 'interesting' process.

So let me start from the beginning:
After getting the crabs from the fishmonger, I was walking home and it's a strange feeling to have things moving in your grocery bag. I was very nervous.
I got home, put the bag in the sink and in a big pot I prepared the cold bath of fish stock and peppercorns for the crabs. I then put on my CSI rubber gloves for protection. I had Merlyn on speaker phone and using a pair of tongs, I tried to put the crabs into the pot. And what a challenge that was! All three crabs were holding their claws tight together which made it hard and they refused to co-operate. After 15 minutes of yelling to the crabs (which was no use) I finally got all of them in the pot (I won!). I put the lid on, and in case if they try to escape, I placed a heavy iron cast pot on top. I cranked up the heat, turn on some music, left the kitchen and did some cleaning in the bed room.

After half an hour, I went back to the kitchen to check the crabs and guess what, the song 'psycho killer' by Talking Heads was playing. My ipod was on shuffle and out of the 1195 songs in it, what are the chances?!?

I lifted the cooked crabs carefully out of the hot stock and left them in a big bowl to cool.

When cooled, I pulled the claws and legs and picked all the meat out with the handle of a teaspoon. I don't have the proper cracker, so I used a heavy rolling pin instead.

The picked crab meat was then dressed with fresh red chilli, lemon, olive oil, fennel tops and became the topping for delicious crab crostini. The title speaks for its taste.



I also made blackened barbecued pork fillets which was also delicious. And dessert was chocolate mousse from the latest issue of Jamie magazine.

I'm just glad it's all over with the preparing whole live crab business and I'm glad to have done it and learn something new. So, thank you Jamie.

And would I do it again? yes.