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Crab, Boiled
Put some water into a saucepan, and to every quart add a table-spoonful of salt. When it boils, put in the crab, previously taking the precaution to tie its claws. Boil briskly for twenty minutes, or longer if the crab is large. When taken out, rub a little sweet-oil on the shell. The flavour of crabs is considered better when they are put into boiling water, besides which, they are sooner killed when the boiling-point has been reached. Probable cost of crabs, from 10d. to 3s. 6d. each, depending upon the size. Sufficient, a medium-sized crab for three persons.
A plain method for a live brown crab, and one of the few Victorian shellfish instructions whose timing still holds up. The points below cover the units, the killing, and how to judge doneness.
- The saltA tablespoon per quart is about 20 g per litre — a little over half the salinity of seawater, which runs around 35 g per litre. Many modern recipes call for more, on the grounds that the shell keeps the flesh from taking up much of it.
- Sweet-oilNineteenth-century shorthand for olive oil. Rubbing it on the shell appears to have been cosmetic, giving a dull carapace a gloss on the table; skip it if the crab is being picked rather than presented whole.
- Timing by weight, not by clockTwenty minutes suits a crab of about 2 lb. Reckon on 12-15 minutes for a 1 lb crab and around 20-25 for a 3 lb one, counted from the moment the water returns to the boil. Overcooking makes the white meat stringy and the brown meat grainy.
- KillingDropping a live crab into boiling water is no longer considered acceptable practice and is discouraged or restricted in several jurisdictions. Current guidance is to chill the crab in a freezer or in ice slurry for 20-30 minutes to sedate it, then spike the two nerve centres on the underside before it goes into the pot.
- Tying the clawsThe book gives no reason, but the advice is sound: a thrashing crab sheds claws and legs, which then flood with water and lose flavour. String or a wide rubber band around the body and claws holds it together.
- Judging it doneThe shell turns a settled brick-orange. Lift the crab out and cool it on its back so the juices stay in the shell rather than draining away.
- Cost and yieldThe price range — tenpence to three shillings and sixpence — is of no use now beyond showing how wide the size range was. A 2 lb crab yields roughly 8 oz of picked meat, brown and white together, so a medium crab stretched across three people is a modest serving each.
The instruction that flavour is better when the crab goes into water already boiling was standard in Victorian cookery books, usually paired — as it is here — with the argument that it is also quicker for the animal; the second is the one modern welfare guidance has overturned. The note on tying the claws points to how these crabs reached the kitchen: alive, since a dead crab spoils fast and Victorian households had no reliable cold storage. The wide price range reflects a market sold by the individual creature rather than by weight.