Does crab meat taste like mud and have gone bad?

When we eat crabs in a restaurant, we eat freshly cooked crabs. However, crabs cooked at home do not taste as good as we imagined. The key to cooking crabs at home is to master the method. The most common method is to wash them first. They can be steamed, braised, or spicy. However, if the crab meat tastes like mud, you have to see if it has gone bad.

Method/Steps: First prepare half a basin of clean water and an old toothbrush.

Put the crabs to be cleaned in, don't worry about them running around, they will go into the water. Some crabs will run out. Just catch them or drive them into the water and they will be quiet after a while. Soak for about ten minutes and then wash.

Hold the crab by its sides and use a toothbrush to vigorously scrub its back, belly, and mouth.

Then clean the sides of the crab and the bases of its feet and claws.

This is the most critical step, and you can’t be timid about it. Grab the claws (use the handle of a toothbrush to lift the joint of the claws from the bottom up, and use the thumb and index finger of the crab catching device to grab the claws upward along the base of the claws. For some ferocious crabs, you can press down the claws or knock them a few times first), open the abdominal cover, and squeeze out the excrement from the inside to the outside in the middle.

Clean the dirt inside the crab's belly cover and the crab claws, and the crab is now cleaned.

Put the cleaned crabs into a pot with half a pot of clean water. (If you don't add water, the crabs will run around.) After washing them all, fill it with clean water and soak for about ten minutes before rinsing. The purpose is to wash away the dirty water brought in when washing the crabs.

1. If you are steaming the crabs, you don’t need to tie them up. Simply place the crabs belly up in the steamer. But I personally think that the steamed crab meat is dry, not fresh and has a fishy smell.

2. If you cook the crab, you don’t have to worry about the crab sticking to the lid of the pot. When cooking crabs, add some salt (you can add more), onions, and ginger. After it boils, add some cooking wine. The cooking wine and onions can remove the fishy smell and enhance the fragrance, the ginger can detoxify and enhance the freshness, and the salt can make the crab meat tasty. The crab soup can be used to make noodles or soup.

3. If you are going to cook the crab, you can chop it directly on the chopping board. Then place the cut part of the crab on a mixture of 2:1 starch and dry flour to prevent the crab juice from being lost, then fry it in a pan with oil, and then add seasonings and spices to cook. But I personally think that this way of eating hairy crabs (such as spicy crabs) loses the freshness of the crabs and may not be suitable for the taste of people in the south of the Yangtze River.

In short, no matter how you cook or eat it, as long as it suits your taste, it's fine. Eating crabs is all about the atmosphere and mood, not just eating them to fill your stomach. I wish you all eat crabs in a healthy and hygienic way and in a happy mood!

By the way, please be careful when washing crabs:

1. Clean up the dead crabs in advance, otherwise after all the crabs become unconscious you won’t be able to tell which are the dead crabs and which are the unconscious crabs.

2. It is best to start cooking crabs within an hour to avoid affecting the freshness of the crabs.