Cooking & Cleaning Your Dungeness Crab

Cooking
Place live crab in boiling, salted water. When water begins to reboil, cook for 18-20 minutes. The crab will turn bright orange. Immerse the crab in cold water to cool before cleaning.

Cleaning
Refrigerate your whole cooked crab until ready to eat. Then follow these simple steps.
To remove the back, hold base of crab with one hand, place thumb under shell at mid-point, and pull off the shell.
The leaf-like gills are now exposed. Gently scrape them away with thumb or spoon edge.
Wash away the "crab butter" (viscera) under a heavy stream of cold water.

Many feel the Oregon Dungeness Crab is best when served warm, straight from the shell and dipped in drawn butter or seafood cocktail sauce. It also makes and excellent ingredient for a wide variety of delicious dishes.