Recently we were at friend’s house. Soon after arrival, our host handed me about a dozen soft shelled crabs and said “here make these!” Eeek! I had never made soft shell crabs before; my husband and irascible 17 year old son are vegetarians, and even our younger non-veg son isn’t really keen on crustaceans. So suffice to say, it has never appeared on our home dinner menu.

My only instruction was “dredge it and add some herbs and stuff after.” Not a lot to go on, but when you’re cooking with friends, it’s fun to jump into the culinary unknown. Nervously, I looked up a couple of recipes and cobbled something together.

You know what? Soft shelled crabs are A LOT easier to make than I thought they would be. I know this may be obvious for many, but I was shocked at the ease of preparation.

If you purchase your soft shelled crabs from a fish monger, you can ask them to clean them for you. If you buy them roadside, it’s fairly easy to clean yourself; with a scissor clip the eyes & mouth, remove the gills under the shell and lastly remove the flap on the underside. Freshness is absolute when buying soft shelled crabs, they should smell briny not fishy.

For the recipe below I fried the soft shelled crabs and at the end tossed them with fresh herbs and lime ponzu sauce. They were so DELISH and easy to make!!

After dredging, drop them gently in to the oil taking care not to splatter yourself.

I test frying point by dropping a little bit of bread into the oil, if it bubbles evenly and is buoyant you’re good to go. If the bread sinks, let the oil heat a couple of more minutes and retest. I guess I could get a thermometer, but knowing myself I would still drop a piece of bread in to verify.

Briefly toss the soft shelled crabs along with the herbs, lime juice and soy sauce.

Normally we would have a picture of the final product, but they were eaten so fast that all we got were some prep pix!!

Soft Shelled Crabs with Herbs

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer

Ingredients

12 soft shelled crabs

For dredging:
1 cup flour
2 eggs
salt & pepper

1 quart oil for frying

1/2 cup chopped scallions
1/4 cup cilantro
1/4 cup thai basil
1/4 cup mint
1 tsp grape seed oil or any other neutral oil
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs fresh lime juice
2 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

Make sure your crabs are cleaned. I gave mine a quick rinse and laid them out on paper towels.

Prepare ingredients for dredging; lightly whisk eggs and season with salt and pepper, I even season the flour with salt and pepper.

Chop all the herbs and set aside along with the lime juice, soy sauce and sesame oil.

In a wok, heat oil to frying point 350-375 degrees.

Dredge the crabs first the flour and then in the egg and gently lower into the oil. You can probably fry 4-5 at time.
Let fry about 4 minutes and flip and continue to cook for a couple more minutes. Take out and drain on a paper towel until you’ve finished cooking all the crabs.

Clean out your wok and add oil under medium heat. Add crabs toss to warm then add herbs, soy sauce and lime juice. Toss several times taking care to not cook the ingredients but to impart flavors to crab.

Place on a platter and serve.

Delish!!

 

 

Notes

Make sure your crabs are clean before you cook them!