crabs in Vancouver

[Foodie in Vancouver]

Thanks, Joie. I now have a bookmark entitled "How to kill a live lobster". I will steam the little guys tomorrow and let you all know how it goes. I am hoping that steaming will avoid some of the watery mess I usually associate with lobsters. Now if only the sun would shine tomorrow and we can eat outside. I am somewhat doubtful about the sun. Maybe in July?

[peppyre]

Karole, I steam lobsters quite frequently and I find that getting a large part is the first hurdle. Once I have that, just add some wine, garlic, water and various other spices to the pot, get it to a rolling boil, then take your little guys and drop in the pot. Slam down a lid quickly, before they can try and escape. It's fast and easy. After about 7-10 minutes, they're cooked. Let them cool for a little bit before you try and break them apart. A lobster burn is nasty. Enjoy dinner!

[Mooshmouse]

...take your little guys and drop in the pot.  Slam down a lid quickly, before they can try and escape.  It's fast and easy.

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Murderess!!!!!!!!

Bonne chance Karole. Be sure to report back on the results!

[Chef Metcalf]

If you think steaming is the best result you should try butter poaching them, then make up your mind.

Good results with spot prawns and scallops too.

[Mooshmouse]

If you think steaming is the best result you should try butter poaching them, then make up your mind.

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Holy Mother of God... I can personally vouch for the gastronomic ecstasy that is Chef Metcalf's butter-poached lobster!

[Daddy-A]

If you think steaming is the best result you should try butter poaching them, then make up your mind.

Good results with spot prawns and scallops too.

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You guys are doing you best to get me fat aren't you??? Perhaps if I just injected the butter straight into my veins!

More info on butter poaching can be found HERE.

A.

[Chef Metcalf]

Thanks for pointing that thread out.

Just to make you feel better Arne... you are only poaching it in the butter, not using it as a condiment, so actually it's probably leaner than your average fair served in a restaurant that has been steamed and served with butter on the side.

Or do I just want that to be true?

[Foodie in Vancouver]

Reporting in on the steamed lobsters for Father's Day dinner - but really quite concerned that I am going to get gonged for being OT.

I decided that with my family dynamics that cooking lobster in front of 5 teenagers, 4 of whom are girls was really pushing my luck so we steamed the lobsters this morning and disarticulated them. We then refrigerated them until just before dinner when we once again tossed them back into the steamer pot (actually a pasta pot). On Peppyre's advice I put a head of garlic, shallots and half a botte of Red Rooster Pinot Gris in the bottom of the steamer.

We started out killing the lobsters first (on the advice of the link kindly provided by Mooshmouse) but I have to say it was a messy business and I am clearly not an efficient killer of lobster, despite the size of my knife. And, it seemed to me, that the lobster which were prekilled had more gunk in the tail bit which we had to clean out.

Oh - we also added a lot of salt to the steaming water in an attempt to make the steaming water somewhat isotonic with respect to the lobster.

Then just before serving, we tossed the disarticulated claws and tails back in the pot to warm up and served them with lemon-garlic butter.

I have to say that I will NEVER EVER boil lobster again - steaming is far better and much less messy. The meat was sweet and tender without the need for the dipping sauce. I tossed a lot of melted butter down the drain.

We also had Caeser Salad (the Bob Blumer "seizure salad" recipe), truffled new potatoes and beef tenderloin. Wine was Blue Mountain 2000 Chardonnay and CedarCreek Pinot Noir. We also had a 1992 Poilly-Fuisse but unfortunately it had gone off so it was dispatched down the drain. Proves once again that wine is meant to be drunk - saving wine for the right occasion is a tricky call. Just drink the wine and enjoy it. After all it is just wine.

All in all, a successful dinner. I am definitely going to steam, rather than boil, lobster and crab in the future. Definitely the best way to cook seafood.

Thanks to everyone for the kind advice on how to prepare my little crustaceans. Happy Father's Day and a good night to all. (In re-reading this post, I realize that it is a bit stream-of-consciousness but really it is just an artifact of the wine consumed so just bear with me. Someone had to finish the bits in the bottom of the bottles -didnt they?)

[Chef Metcalf]

Put them in the freezer for an hour or so prior to boiling or steaming.

You won't need to kill them as they'll just go to sleep.

[Mooshmouse]

Frances, how very humanitarian of you! I never would've thought of that.

Karole, not OT at all, especially considering Lee's antics with his behemoth of the deep upthread. I'll definitely have to give steamed crab a try when we hit the deck at Salt Spring. Thanks for posting the details and allowing us to feast vicariously with you.

[Chef Metcalf]

Frances, how very humanitarian of you!  I never would've thought of that.]

There is some other alternatives Joie.

[Zucchini Mama]

"Simon Buckhaven says his electronic stun-gun would be a humane way of killing the creatures."

I'd be worried about this zapper in the hands of a chef with a bad temper! At a conference in Norway this spring, scientists came to the conclusion tha lobsters don't feel pain the way animals with more highly developed nervous systems do. Their nervous systems are similar to grasshoppers.

Putting them in the fridge slows them down, so they have less reaction to being boiled(measured in tail clicks against the pot) than when they are say "hypnotized" by tickling them on the belly. I read this in The Secret Life of Lobsters.

As lobsters are free range (except for those Manitoban ones) they have a pretty good quality of life. It's the miserable stint they spend starving in the tanks that bothers me, not the "twitch twitch, I'm dead" part.

Zuke

Edited June 21, 2005 by Zucchini Mama (log)

[GrandCru19]

I actually felt a little guilty about eating it - and considered setting free off the shores of Burrard Inlet

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That's already been done.

Scuba divers report the presence of Atlantic Lobsters in Indian Arm-it's thought that that certain Buddhist sects who hope to gain brownie points in this life by setting caged creatures free have in the past released Lobsters to 'live again'.

Also-it's been a fabulous Crab season to date-we're at a high point in their abundance cycle.

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Too funny,

For the record, I enjoy crab and lobster way too much to have any guilt.

My thoughts are, "so someone set some free eh? how long till we can start catching them locally for dinner then ?

[GrandCru19]

Back at the begining....

So where are some great places to buy cheap, good, ample, fresh, live Crabs and Lobster in Vancouver?

T&T in Richmond and downtown, good? Granville Island is expensive comparatively, yes?

[peppyre]

I find the Lobster Man on Granville Island quite reasonable and that's where I always buy my Lobster. Crab I tend to have at Birch Bay when my Grandma gets it fresh from one of her neighbours.

[Zucchini Mama]

Eating in Sooke: A Tale of Two Crabs

I finally got my SO to help me figure out how to post images, so here goes...

I'll start out by showing you a picture of the Rock crab we bought by the dock at the Crab Shack. He cost four dollars and I named him "Rocky".

Next, we have a photo of Rocky beside the two pound Dungeness, which cost eleven dollars. I'll call her "Genie".

So when the fisherman pulled them out of their tanks where they were holding the dominant positions on top of their respective piles (isn't it ironic), they were quite feisty. He wrapped them up in newspaper and popped them in a plastic bag. It took us about eight minutes to get back to the cabin, and by then, they were alive, but stunned. P got out a knife from the cabin, and he found a big stick to bring down hard on the knife and cut each crab in half. Karunch!

After that, he cleaned them and boiled them. We ate the meat naked-no butter or anything. It was interesting to taste the difference, which I felt was mostly about mouthfeel. The rock crab's shell is much thicker and tougher, leaner, and the meat is more translucent and fibrous. Rocky tasted more concentrated with crab flavor than Genie. However, Genie's size meant you could scoop out much bigger chunks of meat, and I like biting into a big chunk of sweet, delicate crab, so they both satisfy different tastes and complemented each other nicely.

Funny, my dad's hunted and fished many creatures, but he seems to swiftly vacate the area when we're killing the crab. He did enjoy the feast, though. The crab meat was flying all over the place as we chowed down!

Zuke