Mud Crab for Dinner

[troppo]

If you cruise where mud crabs abound but don't like to carry smelly fish carcasses in your freezer, cheap tinned cat food makes a fine substitute in a crab pot. The tins store for a long time and are ready when you are ready to put in the crab pot. The disadvantage is the empty tin to cart home to put in the garbage.

Here's my crab pot with two crabs in, only one was legal so the other went back. Overall I caught 11 crabs using 3 tins of cat food, however, only 1 was a keeper. It was killed by placing in ice-box then cleaned and made into chili crab.



I pierce the tin using a small chisel I carry in my toolkit. Not too many holes and I hang the tin in the middle of the pot on a bit of wire.

Crabs have very strong claws. You can see where the crabs have ripped into the tins, enlarging the original chisel hole.

[downunder]

thanks useful to know.

Best chilli crab I ever had was in Trincomalee in Sri Lanka in days when it was called Ceylon.

Hotel cooked it in a clay pot.

Do you have a good receipe.

Cheers

[ozskipper]

Great post thanks.. I used to get good results with old bbq chicken carcasses- that was for blue swimmers on Lake Macquarie. Not sure how the muddies would like em though.

Actually, I have never caught a muddy, though my old witches hats certainly had the scars from a couple. Feisty buggers compared to blueys I am told

[troppo]

I don't think my recipe is particularly good as not as tasty as one I had in Asia but I ain't complaining. : ) Just cut the crab in pieces after killing it on ice and cleaning it. Then crack all the legs and claws so marinade can get in. I made marinade from olive oil with crushed garlic and salt and chili paste (not sweet one), bit of tomato paste. Got marinade inside crab shell as much as possible and left it for a while. Bit of oil in the frypan and kept turning the crab over and over on the heat until it had gone nice orange, had all the marinade in with the crab. Bit of moisture came out of the crab and that helped give a bit of steam for cooking.

Mud crabs are definitely feisty and I would never want to sail back solo from some remote creek to get medical aid from a crab hanging off me. I heard that many years ago, some fella catching crabs by hand out on the mudflats, had them all tied up nicely in his hessian bag and was walking back to his car. The bag was slung over his shoulder and one of the crabs got free from its tie and grabbed him through the bag and held onto his back. Obviously he could not put the bag down but I can't recall how it got the crab off.

[S/V Alchemy]

I would imagine falling backward onto a nice flat rock would prove discouraging to Mr. Crab.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

I would imagine falling backward onto a nice flat rock would prove discouraging to Mr. Crab.

Alchemy:

A legal size Australian muddie has big claws, with what look like teeth on the mating surfaces. They have been known to remove thumbs. I don't think I'd want to have to heal from the size chunk it would have taken out of the guy's back if he tried to discourage it by falling on it. Kill em with cheap alcohol to the gills, you'd really want him to relax--fast!

Ann

[S/V Alchemy]

Thanks for the information: I think I was thinking of something more reasonable in size.

[44'cruisingcat]

Singapore chilli crab we prepared earlier:



For bait, we generally use heads and frames from fish we've caught. Seems a bit more like recycling...

[troppo]

Hi Cruisingcat, that's a big feed for one person : ).

I agree with you that recycling fish heads and frames is a good way to go, but first ya have to catch a fish, which I am not good at. Actually, I once asked a fisho friend for some frames and they sat in the freezer for three or four years until I threw them out (I don't go crabbing very often). That was only about a year ago so if only I had kept them another 12 months . . . .