Catching blue crabs in Florida has always been a thing my family has done since I was a little kid. Be it putting out a crab trap off a dock or using a few double-ring nets from the marina. So now whenever I go down to Florida to either fish or have a family vacation I always take at least a couple of crab traps with me. Either I put them out on the dock behind the house we’re renting or go out and run five of them with buoys and weighted line. Whichever way I go putting out my traps, I end up with at least a few quality blue crabs. If I get a decent chunk of blue crabs in a day or two where I can keep them all alive I will do a crab boil. But often I end up just getting two or three crabs a day so in that case, I will predress the crabs instead of risking them dying in the fridge or cooler. I will throw the blue crabs on ice and when they are done in by the cold I will pop their shells off and clean them out. That way the digestive enzymes from the stomach and innards won’t affect the meat. You can then just keep them cold and they will hold up well in the fridge or freezer. This time when I dressed all the crabs, I decided to keep the tops as well to make a treat that I loved as a kid. Deviled crab, a dish you are familiar with in two ways. Either you grew up on the southeast Atlantic coast and had them in a nice restaurant, or like me had the cheap deep-fried version from Captain D’s or another cheap seafood purveyor. I’m going to show you how to make it from scratch and it’s not going to mostly filler either.
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Deviled Crab – Ingredients
- About 1lb of shelled blue crab meat
- 2 eggs – 1 hard boiled
- 4tbsp unsalted butter
- 2tbsp cooking sherry
- 1/2 cup of Panko Bread Crumbs with more set aside for topping
- 1tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 green onions
- 1/2 – 1 Jalapeno – depending on the heat of the pepper.
- Lemon for Wedges
- Creole Seasoning
- Cayenne Pepper
- Paprika
- Fresh Black Pepper
- At least 7 blue crab shells
First things first, you have to do the prep work steam the blue crabs, and then pick the meat out of all of them. While some people prefer boiling their blue crabs, for cooking prep I prefer steaming the crab simply. You should also steam the cleaned shells of the blue crabs as well. You need those for the final prep of the deviled crab. For picking crabs everyone has their own preferred method, I just take a paring knife and cut the body portions horizontally along the bottom of the crab. This opens up the body and lets you pick out all the meat. Then after all the body parts are done I crack all the claws and legs. While the legs don’t hold a lot of meat that last part before the body holds enough to be worth the effort to squeeze the meat out of them all. For probably .8 pounds of shelled meat, it was around a 14 crabs that I picked.
Now that you picked all your crabs, it’s time to prep all the other ingredients. The first thing you should do is preheat the oven to 425F and start boiling an egg. Once that’s going start prepping your veg, chop up two green onions both the green and white parts. For the jalapeno, you want to taste it first and see how hot it is before deciding on how much you want to use. This one was a bit hotter so I only used half of it after deseeding it. Dice it up fine and put it aside with the green onion.
Now take 2 tbsp of your unsalted butter and melt it, and in another bowl mix together your sherry, creole seasoning, and raw egg. After the butter is melted mix that in as well.
Once that other egg you started is hard-boiled peel it and chop it up, add that and the vegetables you already cut up to the crab meat. Add in your lemon juice and fresh cracked black pepper to the crab meat as well.
Now take your wet ingredients and add them into your crab meat and mix them all together, then add in the panko bread crumbs and continue to mix until all of it is evenly incorporated.
Once your deviled crab mix is done, grab your cleaned crab shells and stuff them with the meat. I probably could have made more of the deviled crab but I broke a few of the shells so I made do with 7 shells. Also if you are just wanting to make this at home using store-bought crab, you don’t need the shells. But it’s now more of a crab cake vs a deviled crab. Make sure to that the mix is well pressed together into the shells, that way they hold together when cooked.
Now place all your stuffed deviled crabs onto a baking tray and sprinkle them with panko bread crumbs, cayenne, and paprika. Then top with a pat of butter on each piece of deviled crab.
Bake the deviled crabs for about 20 minutes or until the top starts browning a bit. Remember the crab is already cooked so you don’t want to overdo it. After they are done baking or you just can’t stand to wait any longer. Pull them from the oven and serve with some lemon wedges, enjoy.
The post Cook your Catch – Baked Deviled Crab from Florida Blue Crabs appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.
